OK Tournament and Non - tournament Bass Fishermen

[fishbum]

1) I would say early spring or fall. Other then a serious flood situation---why does the river need to be stable. I've fished several when the river was not "stable
2)$50 is ok---you don't have to have $50,000 to make this a success. The biggest problem last year was offering $50,000 and then backing it down to $20,000 this year.
3)For example---I was at Maysville last week for 3 days and never once saw anything, anywhere, or heard anything that mentioned this tournament. With over a 100 boats there and over 200 competitors from all up and down the river and across about 3 states, sure would have been a good time to plaster flyers on everybody's truck windows.
4)Good we agree on one thing.
5)I don't know about the measuring thing. I know for a fact last year at Wolf Creek they WERE NOT measuring fish. They may have this year, I don't know, but I was told they were not measuring fish---at least I heard that about Cox's Park on Friday and Saturday from a reliable source.

6)Jim, I did totally understand the rules and payouts last year. As a matter of fact I talked to Linda Hill several times and even called in to the Jim Strader show to clarify certain issues. I was VERY skeptical last year.
So, for the record I UNDERSTOOD---but when it came to the hourly prizes---people runng the weigh stations couldn't even tell us if they were paying out 1 place or 3 per hour. So ASKING someone who is supposed to KNOW, did no good!

The rules included the participation notes..
The KRA did not know until the last day how many would participate.
BEYOND that what did you want them to tell you?
When not enough people participated they were not required by the rules to even pay the HOURLY WINNERS and yet they did. That was a stand up action on their part. They paid over $50K and only took in as I recall and I am not exact here in the neighborhood of $8500.00 to $10K.
Do the math. They LOST over $45K.
And still they came back.
As for the measuring thing.. There was a board at the weigh station and the weigh master had the discression to measure fish. If a fish was obviously over 12 inches they did not measure it and I did not see any weighed that were not. I do not know about Wolf Creek I was at Cox's Park.

[Stonewall2002]

10) The Cost... Cant see forking over 95.00 to gamble against anglers from atleast 5 states.

9) Too many variables.... Weather, current, debris, drought. Yes, you do encounter these variables in reserviors and impoundments, but they are not influenced by events in 5 states.

8) Locks.... Never locked through a dam.... never want to... hopefully never will.

7) Comercial Trafic... Cant stand dealing with the wake from one of those cabin crusers, cant imagine the breakers thrown off by a barge pushing 20,000 tons of coal. To dangerous for me and my 17'er.

6) Never fished a tournament... dabbled with the idea of fishing some others, but I personally dont like to gamble away my hard earned cash. Others may do as they wish, and I wish them all the best of luck, but Im not sure that I'm ready to turn something I love so much into something other than a trivial persuit.

5) Went to Rough instead ... Yes its farther away... and yes I had to deal with some fairly heavy trafic early in the afternoon, I know how to fish it and was fairly confident I could boat a fish or two. Better money spent to pleasure gained ratio if you ask me.

4) Dirty.... yes I said it. Dirty. I know we have made great strides in cleaning the Ohio River System but the idea of fishing downstream of Cincy and Pitsburg isnt my idea of a good time. I'll take the cow poop, party litter, and campsite trash you find at state parks, thank you.

3) Poor fishery... I know it some a long way baby, but its still got quite a ways to go. I am thankful for the program to stock 200,000 by the KDFWR and local tournament sponsors and once their project begins to show results I might give it a shot. As things stand today I'd rather fish other places.

2) 1 4lber does not a tournament make.... To random of an outcome. One guy could stumble across an errant 4.8 pound fish and walk away with $20,000. The whole tournament is based less on skill than luck. With so many anglers spread across such a large geographic region, on a netoriously poor fishery the skills one possesses are more likely to fall prey to the luck possessed by another.

1) Had chores to cross off the honey-doo list... Whiped... you can say it, I accept it and embrace it. But I would rather bask in the good graces of the little lady than deal with the cumulative negative effects of the previous nine reasons.

[Dave Stewart]

From the veiwpoint of someone on the outside looking in:

The reason the nontournament anglers did not fish it speaks for itself...they are not tournament anglers.

Again, I would say lack of promotion has done this tournament in again. I am assuming this tournament was advertised on local tv stations/radio stations (commercials) and in local newspapers? Tournaments of this magnatude have to reach out in all these communication areas to be successful. How about internet coverage? I am associated with 4 fishing websites that are focused on fishing in the Ky/In/Oh area with good numbers of daily visitors to those sites...this is the only website of the 4 that I have seen this tournament mentioned. Were mailouts done to the known tournament anglers and in the area of coverage? I know someone has these mailing lists because I get mail all the time with tournament flyers and I don't even fish tournaments but get them just because I am associated with tournament fishing through my guide service.

I could be totally wrong here...but since I know of at least 120 folks from the Louisville/Frankfort/Lexington area that were down here this weekend fishing a two day club tournament. Now it cost them a lot more to come down here for a minimum of 3 days than it would have cost them to fish the BBBC tournament. Since this club is one of the largest in the central ky area I am wondering if the folks running the BBBC tournament reached out to the club officers of the major bass clubs in the central kentucky area last year(before they set their club schedules) and spoke to them about enlisting their help to promote this tournament in their local area since it was planned to help promote businesses in the area? I am not talking about sending them a flyer...I am talking about personnally phoning them and/or visiting the club meetings.

How many chamber of commerce meetings did the folks that were promoting this tournament attend...specifically those organizations that have business members in the specified launch areas? It would seem to me that the local motels/hotels and restaurants would have been pushing this with discounts to the participants to get more anglers....good for their business and in hand good for the tournament....I don't remember seeing anything about such discounts being offered.

Like I said, I could be off base here since I don't see and/or listen to Lousiville/Frankfort/Lexington/Carrolton/Maysville tv stations, newspapers, radio stations down here in western Ky so this may have been done and all kinds of publicity may have been present and assistance from local bass clubs and fishing organizations may have been garnered....and I was just not privvy to it. The only direct contact I have been privvy to is the internet and like I said before...this is the only site I have seen this advertised on of the 4 sites I visit daily that cover this area of the state.

A tournament of this magnatude requires a lot of publictiy to cover such a large area of the tristate area of In/Ky/Oh...I am assuming the folks that brought this idea to the area and convinced the restaurant association to buy into it are getting paid to run and promote it....or am I wrong here...could be...but since there are thousands of tournament anglers in these areas I can't think of any good reason why they would not participate other than this. Heck, I would have come up there and fished it but they won't let me according to their rules even though I do not and have never guided on the Ohio River.

[fishbum]

The KB and the TBF both new and were in on the tournament run up and had told their members.
132 News Releases to all News outlets in the state produced major articles in the Louisville, Lexington and Ashland Papers, I dont know about the Paducah area.
Radio ads on WHAS and other Louisville stations for the last 2 weeks.
Booth At the Strader Show.
Mailouts of information and registration to every tackle store in the KY and Indiana, and parts of Ohio.
Still if that was not enough, it does not explain guys coming to the ramp to prefish other tournaments and not getting in the tournament at the ramp?
There was a ton of publicity.
NO the other 4 websites may not have had the info...
Jim Dicken

[Dave Stewart]

Sounds like the organization had plenty of press and publicity. I did a poll on another site and asked basically if they knew about the tourney...if they chose not to fish the tourney but knew about it, if they fished the tourney and the answers are running overwhelmingly that the folks knew about the tourney but chose not to fish it....with that kind of response I would say that the publicity was there and reached the target audience but the audience just does not want to fish the Ohio River.

[Basswipe]

Sounds like the organization had plenty of press and publicity. I did a poll on another site and asked basically if they knew about the tourney...if they chose not to fish the tourney but knew about it, if they fished the tourney and the answers are running overwhelmingly that the folks knew about the tourney but chose not to fish it....with that kind of response I would say that the publicity was there and reached the target audience but the audience just does not want to fish the Ohio River.

Be careful. The target audience will be accused of being dumb..............

[fishy1]

The Ohio river is a gar hole!

[jfw]

I am sick to my stomach for not fishin it I woulda got the 8AM hourly money see my post about this morning .My boat is old and is not equipped to fish a tournament . MY goal is to upgrade by next year .I fish the Ohio 3to 4 days a week and whoever said it was a gar hole is misinformed

[fisheater]

I have a good time catchin gar on crankbaits,im not picky just enjoy a good fight.With gas prices the way they are and most peoples economy shot to hell because of it the rivers my new best friend,but when it comes to dishin out 95 bucks,just didnt have it to risk and the gar were calling my name anyway.John.

[LindaH]

Wow! I am really sad to see the negativity about this tournament.

I've read the posts on this thread and I am taking the liberty of speaking to as many of them as I can because the vision of this tournament is so much bigger than just another tournament (that none of you really have to support). I'm not here to attack anyone for not participating, I'm not here to attack anyone for anything. What I would like to do is present a few facts, introduce a few ideas and ask that the anglers who read this might entertain a different perspective on the impact that this tournament could have.

I understand that in today's society people of all walks of life, of all hobbies, of all sports, and of all professions have been swindled, duped, deceived, etc. at least once and probably more than once. Therefore, I understand skepticism to some degree. I am an extreme skeptic, myself. I was also the BBBC tournament director last year and I can assure you all that the KRA isn't being duped by outside tourney organizers and the KRA isn't trying to dupe any anglers or hobby fishermen either.

Although I am no longer with the KRA and was not involved with the tournament this year once the date was set, I believed from the birth of the idea to duplicate the Arkansas tournament and I still FIRMLY believe this could be a wonderful opportunity for so many on so many levels. Forgive me for the length of this post.

First of all, the KRA has done their homework about this type of tournament. It really is quite simple and because of it's format, not only are a lot of the rules for tournaments this area is used to not required, but they simply don't fit. Because of the format, different steps (that are actually more expensive) are taken to prevent or detect cheating, not fewer steps. Many anglers here are not accustomed to this format and therefore are afraid of it. Understandably so, since so many times tourneys have been tainted with the few who think they can get away with cheating their way to a prize. That's unfortunate for all tournaments, especially one with a different format.

It was (and hopefully still is) the vision from the beginning, to follow the footsteps of the Arkansas Hospitality Association (who knows the same thing the KRA does--restaurants and not fishing) and grow this tournament (instead of shrink it) each year into THE non-club tournament of the year--there was and is NO desire to compete with club tournaments. The question was asked last year in September about dates so that this year would NOT clash with clubs. The dates were presented here and there was not one post saying that it was not a good date. All replies were in agreement. The KBF was consulted in advance and then notified when the date was set and a month or so later set their Point Park tourney on the same date. We worked feverishly to set the dates and post them on this site before club tournament dates were set.

Several posts said that the river was dirty, the fishery in the river is bad, they didn't know the river, etc. The river is in better shape--both with cleanliness and fish--than it has been in years. The river has had a horrible reputation for years and was deserving for a long time, but that IS changing--even much to my surprise. I'm not just guessing or mimicking what I've heard--I have two sons who have fished the river almost every warm weekend for the last seven years. The size of the fish may not be as large as Arkansas, but neither is the length requirement in the rules. And everyone is fishing in the same river with the same fish and if you don't like one pool you can move to another one the next day or even the same da if you so choose. Maybe you don't catch the big one, but hourly prize money can and was won by 1 and 2 pounders. As long as the fish are 12", they truly have the chance of hourly money. If the participation would be there (and it's not unrealistic), there are 290 ways to win money. How many tournaments offer that many ways to win?

The support of this tournament by the anglers and by the boat dealers and by the tackle shops would mean more fishermen being drawn to the river. More fishermen on the river would mean more fishermen in other tournments held on the river--maybe even more fishermen joining and supporting clubs. And it would mean that more attention is drawn to the river--and then maybe that would mean that the government might decide that they need to clean it up even more and possibly stock it even more with all of the attention that the river is getting. And going back to the Arkansas model, the BBBC could work with the KDFW to stock it. Last year in Arkansas the hatchery gave every fisherman 50 fingerlings to take to his favorite spot and release on the first day. How cool if we could work our tournament here in Kentucky to that point. How cool that would be for every angler, every hobby fisherman, every club, every tackle shop, every city up and down the river as well as every city that anglers live in, etc. etc.

THAT in a nutshell was the vision of this tournament. It is heartbreaking--and I am speaking from experience last year--to not be able to pay out ALL of the prize money that wasn't guaranteed. You guys don't know how hard it is to stand up in front of the dinner guests and announce that we did not have enough participation to pay every prize. My heart goes out to Mark, Stacy, Christine and Shannon because I know that this tournament was intended to be a POSITIVE impact on EVERYONE involved and they went home tonight heartbroken.

I beg you all, please don't bash, don't criticize, don't complain--they don't deserve it. Instead, support the vision of this tournament because, in the long run, it means so much more than the three day event. I just wish you guys could see it.

Best regards,

Linda Hill

[LindaH]

Two more quick things--

You didn't have to lock through. The dams this year were the pool boundaries.

Just like last year, you could trailer your fish to the weigh-in site to save time. As long as you kept your fish alive.

Linda

[VMAXX]

Explain to me why you are not fishing the Ohio River this weekend for the Big Bass Big Cash? Even non-tournament anglers would enjoy this hourly weigh in format... which is very fish friendly.
Hourly Big Fish is $100 plus $50 if you are wearing a hat or a shirt... from the tournament.
I want to fish but can not find anyone with a boat to fish with..
IF you are not fishing this tournament please tell me why you would not fish for $20,000.00
Anglers are putting in to Pre-Fish for other tournaments and not fishing the tournament.. some are saying they can't afford the $95.00 while driving a $15,000 boat and running a $20,000 tow vehicle..
Is there anyone out there who could NOT use $20K or more ..????
The money is guaranteed... they paid last year.. so what is the problem if you are not fishing..
(So far 200 entries... so the $20K is covered.. why not come out and fish tomorrow??)
Jim Dicken

I think most of the serious guys pretty much set up a budget to fish one or maybe two circuits a year(at least in my case) and with the price of gas it's pretty hard to deviate from that...yeah I know its only 95.00 but you forgot to add 165.00 to fill my boat,75.00 to fill my truck, might not seem like much but thats over one entry into BFL. While they may have a 35,000.00 setup(which is actually very low for todays rigs) they may be commited to other circuits and have the money budgeted for that so that 95.+ a day is actually alot in the scheme of a year.