New members

[Big Ed]

Wondering if the club is going to hit the winter fishing shows again? I would love to have some sort of flyer to hang up at my work, as several guys have hinted at wanting to give it a try. I think they just wanna beat me but I'm willing to humble myself alittle for the sake of the club!

[Crappieking1]

Big Ed, I am sure we will hit some of the small shows this winter if we are able. I plan on having 1 or 2 meetings over the off season, pobably the similar to last year where we had our meetings at the Golden Corral. During these meetings we will be helping with some techniques on handling your fish, and keeping them alive. Our rules encourage live release of our fish to leave a good image, so I think the better informed we are, the better chance we will have to release our fish back to the lake alive and healthy (that way they may be even bigger next year!)

I hope this helps and hope to see you at Geist on the 29th!

Info on Geist Tournament:

Home - Indiana Slab Masters

I would be happy to email you some information that you can print off your computer and take to work to post!

Good fishin'

[danwalleye]

i caught what i thought was a big yellow bass at eagle creek a few weeks ago and looked up the state record to see how close i was not very close and whose name did i see congrats on a real monster i always wondered where these fish came from i caught lots of them in monroe in the 70 s and people said then some one must have transplanted them from reelsfoot are they a cross of wipers and white bass or a seperate species

[Crappieking1]

Dan, They are a seperate species all on their own. They are in a lot of lakes, I remember catching them in Kentucky lake even back in the late 70s and early 80s. They called them "sunshine bass" down there. Believe it or not, they are one fine eating fish. I have a friend that targets them and eats them and claims they are better to eat then almost any other panfish. Thanks for the post and good fishin' to you!

[CPR]

Jim, I wanting to join the ISM for the 2012 season, However i want to ask a few questions before committitting to the season. Maybe some questions that can be brought up at the meetings ?

1. With a annual membership fee @ $25.00 per person/$50.00 per Team. Why does IndianaSlabMasters charge $50.00 to fish the Classic ?

2. With the 2011 Membership fees and a 20% Profit from every Tournament, That's $3,000+ profit for the 2011 season. Take away the 1 time expense of the scales for the Club and the yearly fees of supplies, DNR fees, insurance, printing, postage, advertising, etc. Can the ballance be payed back to it's members at the classic ?

3. Are the officers paid for their positions or volunteers, If officers are volunteers where does the profits from the year ends funds go ?

4. Are Elections held for officer positions ?

5. With a Membership fee are members allowed to vote ?

I have been to a few ISM tournys and can say it's a "Top Notch Club' and hope my question don't offend anyone, I just wanna see the club go in the right direction for Indiana Crappie Fishermen.

[Crappieking1]

CPR,

We will be having some Winter Meetings, more than likely the first one right after the holidays. All of your questions are good ones, and are valid. I will be happy to answer your questions to the best of my ability, and I will adress them according to your numbers:

1. The reason why we still charge $50.00 to fish the Classic is we are trying to have the maximum amount of money to award out for the Classic. We also pay more spots for the classic too.
2. In the 2011 season we did not come close to collecting $3,000.00 in "profit". The way we had last year set up was very confusing and the club did not collect nearly the amount of membership fees that we will this year, since we changed the wording to "$25.00" a person. Last year we had a very confusing "team" concept where we allowed non paid alternates at one tournament a year, so we had teams joining and fishing one tournament and only paying $30.00 to join the club. We also had team captains and anyone they brought to fish, many of those people paid only $20.00 to join.

At each event last year that was held on a state property, we had to mail the DNR $3.00 per boat for each tournaments permit. We did not know what the participation would be so we applied for 50 boats per tournament. our obligation for the DNR is 80% of the full fees for each tournament, which ended up being $120.00 per tournament for our tournament fees. Like you stated, we were an upstart club, and we had to purchase EVERYTHING to get the club started. We not only bought scales, but needed a ballast, a weigh basket, tables to weigh the fish on, duplicate tournament entry paperwork, trophies for each event, etc. We had to buy a domain name for our website, and have a monthly fee to keep the website up and running. we also paid in excess of $650.00 for our club insurance. I also applied with an organization that provided our federal government non-profit number to make our club a non-profit organization, which was another fee. We also purchased a voice recorder and amp with microphone to assist with our weigh-in communication.

We bought trophies for each event as I mentioned previously, and awarded the top 5 teams at the classic a plaque, which cost nearly $300.00, and at the end of the season we awarded the top 10 teams B'n'M points plaques that cost us in excess of $400.00. We also had embroideried hats made for each of our Classic qualifier members (70) plus an extra (30) regular embroidered hats that cost the club nearly $900.00. We had a year end banquet and paid $1,100.00 for catering and rental of the South Harbour Club House to put the banquet on at. We bought each of our 2011 sponsors plaques which cost nearly $200.00, and cost another $60.00 to ship them. We made 2011 membership good until January 1st, so we collected some 2012 membership fees at the Geist 2012 fall kick off, and that money is still in the account to help with paying our 2012 club insurance so we can get our permits for next year. We have them all approved, but we can't get them until we have our insurance company send the DNR our paid insurance information. Sorry this went on for so long, as I don't think anyone would believe all that goes on behind the scenes to have a few crappie tournaments. We also will have to keep some money back to pay for having our non profit taxes prepared. So to answer your question would be that after all this was paid, it came down to almost breaking even before the geist tournament.

My intentions is that this year we will probably do things a little different and definitely pay money back into the classic.

3. The offficers of the Indiana Slab Masters are 100% volunteer. We even pay our dues just like everyone else, and we also pay for our tournament fees, etc. We gain no benefit from running this club. I had a passion of starting a crappie club, and Tom Hankins was a huge help to get this thing up and going. We had a great passion to see something put in place that we could all enjoy, and Tom and I (along with Glenn Gill, Bob Raymer, and the 3 advisory board members) have a very strong desire to see it ran the correct way, and to the letter of the law.

4. When the club was formed, and we had our first meeting, the members voted me in as President and Treasurer of the club, Tom Hankins in as Vice President, and Glenn Gill in as Secretary. We in turn assigned our advisory board member positions, and the 2012 Tournament Director (Bob Raymer) which are all officers of the club. Our Advisory board is in place for any member to have a voice in decisions concerning the club. As a member, you can voice any concerns to any of us officers, but especially the advisory board, and they will speak up for you. We are not going to hold elections for these positions for the 2012 season as we have now all a year under our belt, and feel like we don't want to alter the success we have had. This decision was based solely on our Advisory Board's advice after talking to the members. If someone wants to be considered for an official position, they can feel free to show interest and a desire to want to be an official and it will be seriously considered.

The concern from the advisory board was that other crappie clubs that had open elections placed people in place that ultimately caused the club to collapse, or the elected officer found out that it was far more work than they wanted to do and didn't have the passion to keep the club strong. As club officers, we are the ones that show up to sign up everyone the night before, are the first ones at the ramp in the morning to sign up everyone, and we are the last to get to leave for our fishing spots. We also have to usually quit fishing early to be at the weigh in to make sure that goes smoothly. We are almost always the very last ones to leave the ramp at the end of the tournament too. The concern is that nobody really wants these positions, so we are more than willing to do them and will continue to, until someone decides they want to do it.

5. Yes, as a paid member you have a say in what happens in the club through the advisory board, or if we have an issue arise that we want the members to vote on.

I hope I answered all your questions to your satisfaction, as we try to be an open book on how we do things, and we work very hard to make this a very fun club to fish and be a member of!

Good Fishin'

[danwalleye]

i only went to 1 weigh in last year at cataract but i had friends at two others those guys who not only set up the tourney but fish all day did a great job thats a lot of work if there s a little left over at the end i don t think anyone should be bothered if they took a little for expenses i will be in the tourneys at least those near to me next year especially after the quality of what i saw this year i doubt i can beat most but it will be fun trying

[TDHcrappiemaster]

Dan Thanks for the compliments and CPR just like Jim said we are all 100% volunteer at what we do.
At the classic we paid back 100% and we also spent over $600 for hats that was given out to everyone who qualified for the classic.
Then we spent $1000 on a end of the year banquet to honor the points champions.

As you can see we are making sure everyone gets thier money worth out of the club. The way Jim and I look at things is what would we like to see if we were someone not in charge. After all its our names and reputation on the line and we are both proud individuals that like to please everyone.
You also have to remember this was our first time to ever run such a club. We have soo many hours behind the scene's its ridiculous and now that we know what it takes we can only improve on what we have.

Thanks for your questions and I hope we answered them for you. I hope you and a team mate are looking to join for the 2012 season.
Trust me when I say we all learn soo much at every tournament that its priceless.

[CPR]

Had i known that IndianaSlabMasters applied for non-profit organization, I would have never ask'd some of the questions. I'm sure this will be added to the Home/About us or FAQ tab when this happens. I know behind the scene's it takes a lot of volunteers and passion to run these tournaments and for that i thank every one of you and look forward to haveing a fun and competitive future with IndianaSlabMasters.

[Crappieking1]

CPR,

I had a discussion with Team 9 and found out that it takes several thousand dollars to get the non-profit status done. I don't know if and when we will get to that, as we need to keep the club funds strong. The main point is we are a up and up organization, and we are not running this to make money off anyone. At our weigh-ins, the big part is not the checks handed out, it is all about the Plaques, trophies, give-a-ways, and winning that makes the club. I don't think one member of the club fishes it to make money. If you win and stay at a hotel for an out of town event, you will be real lucky to break even. I truly hope you fish and enjoy it. I am the treasurer, and will be happy to share the registry off the Indiana Slab Masters Checking account to any member any time!

Thanks again for inquiring, and I hope to see you at the 1st club meeting of 2012 in January!