OK Tournament and Non - tournament Bass Fishermen

[fishbum]

The fishery that they are fishing is not in the same class as what the Arkansas folks fish. I had planned on trying it but when they chose to not use the Owensboro ramp I couldn't justify the pre-fishing and tourney costs + gas. Eliminating the Owensboro and Henderson/Evansville markets and not advertising here was a huge mistake last year and this, imo.

Can you imagine what kind of participation this would garner on KY and Barkley? I'm surprised that no one has done this. A weigh in at KY Dam Village and say Ken Lake and one at Kuttawa and Little River would be about right. I would say put this on a quality fishery and then you could rival Arkansas.

The purpose of the tournament is to promote the Cities on the river. To bring BIG MONEY to fishing in Kentucky. Where better to fish than where EVERYONE has a chance to win a tournament? The Ohio River is an equalizer.
EVERYONE has a chance to win on ONE cast on the river. HELL when else could the average fisherman fish for $20K??????????
Even if it is the river? Enough people sign up and you are fishing for $50K or more??
I don't like to fish the river is the dumbest reason for NOT fishing a tournament like this I have ever heard. No participation means NO ONE is going to try this. The people running it are trying to help Louisville and cities along the river, you can not have a tournament at the OTHER end of the state if you want to promote people coming to Louisville, and Carrollton and Northern Kentucky, and to the small towns along the river.
HOW do you throw a guaranteed $20K tournament and no one participates?
Why would the cost of fishing this tournament be harder than fishing any tournament series? Win a super pool and get a nice check. Win the whole thing with full participation and win $50K... $20K guaranteed...
I do not get it! Where else can you fish for that kind of money? Why wouldn't you fish for $20K EVEN if it is on the river?
Jim Dicken

[kc]

Money is what is ruining bass fishing. You couldn't pay me to fish a tournament for "big money" much less me investing my money for the pimps. I don't care if it is Big Bass Cast, BFL, FLW, BASS, or whatever acronym you dream up. I can only hope and pray such tournaments flop and maybe things can improve some day. I won't support them in any way.

kc

[fishbum]

Money is what is ruining bass fishing. You couldn't pay me to fish a tournament for "big money" much less me investing my money for the pimps. I don't care if it is Big Bass Cast, BFL, FLW, BASS, or whatever acronym you dream up. I can only hope and pray such tournaments flop and maybe things can improve some day. I won't support them in any way.

kc

IF you don't fish tournaments OR HATE tournaments you were not my target of disdain here.
Short Sighted you are.
Without money the tournaments bring you will not have the stocking programs the water quality programs and the protection of the BASIC RIGHT to fish. EVERYTHING costs money and tournaments generate the money that drives the conservation programs that provide you with the fish you catch. Going fishing for the fun of it is TERRRIFIC, but how often can you do it?
Most people work 5 days a week and occasionally get a vacation. Without big time fishing we would still be fishing for bass 10 a day and 12 inches long. Remember those days.. The occasional 5 pounder was a MONSTER. Hate the tournaments all you want, but without tournaments without BassMaster, FLW, BFL, Redman and Big Bass Big Cash, you would be fishing for pan fish sized fish. Fishing NOW is the best it has been since the 50's.
I do not fish tournaments, but I constantly hear guys on here bitching and moaning that the average angler can not fish for the BIG money.. Well here was your chance.
ONE tournament with a low entry fee.
No series to qualify.
No prefishing 4 different or 5 different lakes.
MAYBE 2 nights in a motel, and gas..
A payout you could not get anywhere EXCEPT maybe in Arkansas.
Try to bring it to Kentucky for 3 days.. (less than 1/100 of the year) and only about 200 fishing days are paid. It makes no sense to me.
Apparently it does not make sense to anyone else either.

IF we had made it a $500.00 entry fee I bet we would have had 500 boats.
As for the Kentucky Lake / Lake Barkley thing.. 1500 boats on those 2 lakes??
Its tough fishing there when there are 2 major tournaments on both lakes.. and that is 300 to 400 boats...
No this only works on a river or a long system.. The Mississippi, The Arkansas, the Missouri, some rivers in Alabama and Georgia are about the only places you could have this kind of tournament and have the low entry fee that you have here.
Hate the tournaments but in the end it is the tournament angler that has improved fishing and has improved the fishery.
Take tournaments out and the A R crowd will takes over.

I am disappointed in the tournament crowd.
There are at least 600 of you out there who could have fished one or more days.. Some of you fished the river and instead of taking a chance of winning you chose to snub the tournament. I want to know why?
What is it about this tournament that you did not fish it?

[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.

[gump]

The people running it are trying to help Louisville and cities along the river, you can not have a tournament at the OTHER end of the state if you want to promote people coming to Louisville, and Carrollton and Northern Kentucky, and to the small towns along the river.

You said it elsewhere this has to be a whole river event. So why cut off two of the larger populated areas on the river and Western KY altogether?
I understand last year there was poor attendance down here, but I talked to several hard core tourney guys last year that knew nothing about it. And then this year poof sorry this is a Louisville, Northern KY event.

[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

[Basswipe]

I don't like to fish the river is the dumbest reason for NOT fishing a tournament like this I have ever heard. No participation means NO ONE is going to try this. Why wouldn't you fish for $20K EVEN if it is on the river?
Jim Dicken

I'm trying to decide whether I've been offended by you basically calling me dumb.

Here's the simple reason: I didn't fish it because I chose not to. I fished the UofL open on Nolin yesterday.

You know what else? I chose not to because I hate fishing the river. That's plenty good enough reason for me. Dave Stewart said that there were a ton of people from Louisville down at Ky lake for a 2 day tournament. Are they all dumb too? I think they're smart. If I had the choice of being on the river, or at Ky Lake, it would be a no brainer. I'd be down at Ky/Barkley in a heartbeat. If you had the EXACT same tournament format as this one, but put it on Ky/Barkely, you'd have 3X the turnout. Same money, same entry fees, same rules, etc, just change the location to Ky/Barkely. They'd be overwhelmed with entrants. Why? Because the river is a miserable place to fish.

You seem to be proceeding under the presumption that anyone that fishes tournaments is in it strictly for the money. I think you'll find that's not true for the majority of us. The money is a nice side issue if you win, but I simply enjoy the competition and the fishing. If I were there simply for money, I'd be a miserable SOB, because I don't win as much money as I spend.

You need to quit acting so judgmental and indignant because you don't understand the way other people fish. If you're so hot and heavy to fish tournaments on the river, go get yourself a boat, or get yourself a partner with a boat and have at it. I'm sure that those of us that don't fish the river won't be as judgmental of you as you are of them.

Then when you spend your hard earned money on the boat and gas and have not caught many fish, and have damaged your boat/engine a few times due to trash and debris that's always in the river, maybe you'll begin to understand.

[DJD]

This applies to more than this thread...For the past few weeks maybe more people have had their say with the bad tourny anglers that they have encountered. It must be nice to be in the perfect situation all the time to sit back and judge an entire group of people because you know of a few bad apples. Consider how many tournaments are out there and then consider how many times you have had a bad experience. I know dozens of fine upstanding men who fish tournaments and they are productive members of our community with families and i would suspect they have as much class or respect (maybe more) than some of the people who constantly bash others. Get real.......

[fishy1]

The Ohio river is a gar hole!

[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..............