Partial Elimination of Bonus Point Structure

[fished-out]

As some of you're aware, over the past few years, BCC has given bonus points to teams who fish 6 tournaments and some more bonus points at 7 tournaments for purposes of determining who qualifies to the classic and to determine the final standings in the points race. The team who places first in the points race is declared the points champion for the year and receives special recognition and awards, and in the past we've also recognized folks in the top 5, etc, so this is a big deal.

Jeff and I have discussed the bonus points system, and we've decided to make a change. Teams will still receive bonus points for fishing 6 tournaments, but we're eliminating the extra bonus points for fishing the 7th tournament.

Essentially, we're awarding bonus points to teams that fish at least 6 tournaments in a season. We're limiting it to 6, since only a team's best 6 tournaments count toward the points race. This will also eliminate future complications for the 2014 season, when we plan to expand the circuit from 7 regular tournaments to 8 regular tournaments. We're keeping the bonus points for fishing 6 tournaments because we feel it provides a measure of recognition of the effort it takes to do it. These bonus points will not really affect the outcome of the top positions in 2013, because everyone who fishes at least 6 gets them and anyone who fishes 5 or less will probably be out of the top 5 anyway.

This also means that a team that has to miss a tournament early is not out of the points race. If they can fish 6, they're in. Combined with the rules that allow some subsitutions, this gives a team alot of latitude in meeting the points race qualification requirements.

We realize it's a long season with lots of competing circuits, that sickness and other circumstances can hurt a team's ability to fish all the tournaments together, and that crap just happens. We hope this helps make it a bit easier.

[Yates]