Thread: Crappie Tournament opinions OPEN DISCUSSION

I reallly enjoyed the previous thurs nite tourneys. They were well run, fair, and you got to meet a great bunch of guys. Although you could sometimes win decent money it was more about matching skill with the other fishermen. 4 fish for a 3 hr tourney does invite some luck. Whats wrong with that? Find that big anchor slab and you could finish in the money. That one team won for many weeks and earned it but to us it became a challenge to place anywhere near them. Heck it was FUN. If I had to fish for a living I'd be pretty hungry instead I fish for fun. I still like a 4 fish tourney and if I find my fish and get lucky well then that was a heck of alot of fun.

I just can't make them very often in the evenings. But to me tournament fishing is about finding big fish. For a 3 hr tournament 4-5 fish seems to be plenty. 7-10 in a full day. Bigger creels than that seem silly to me. A lot of people can go out and find 10 fish throughout a day or 4-5 in a night, but it's those who can catch the bigguns that should be rewarded.

I used to fish alot of tourneys back in the day, fished when there were 15, 10 and 7 fish limits for a full day. I always thought the 10 fish weigh in was the best guage of the fishermen. You still had to catch a good number of fish, but knew you had better have a some bigger fish, because 10 10in fish weren't going to get you a check most days.

I agree that the more fish, the better chance a guy has of beating one kicker fish.

7 fish seems to me like a good number, this hits the middle road for those that think they can compete with 7 average fish vs the 4 bigger fish. Like I said before a good tourny guy is still going to win no matter what the situation. I know most of the times the winners just dont have 4 fish, they have some back ups :-).

Over all I think we need to get these up and running again and make some decisions as a group that will hopefully bring more people and have some fun. The previous post hit it on the head with the marketing. A decision needs to be made soon, and the good word needs spread to generate some excitement in potential players. I am more than willing to help with the marketing side of things, but unfortunately cannot commit to running them.

Any ideas for a cheap, and useful way to advertise these tournys? Also any potential sponsers or donor ideas.

I say 4 fish is perfect but no more than 5 or else I dont know if I will fish them. If you are worried about someone catching a kicker fish go figure out how to catch 2 of them and beat that team that only has 1.

well said treedipper I would also like to see a 4 fish limit but we will have to see what happens. Hopefully we can all agree on something that will make everyone happy. I really miss these tournaments I learned alot from the guys that fished them. When I first started fishing them I really wanted a 10 fish limit because I was fishing schooled fish and catching 10-15 keepers a night but no big fish. Getting whooped with my 10-11 inch fish pushed me to learn new ways to catch fish. They are a great way to learn new things about crappie fishing. Even if your not a tournament guy I think these are usefull.

If I might spew for you, you've answered your question with the 10 fish limit. It also seems you have a start on recruitment, however uncanny your ways might be. However, you need new blood and a different format might be needed, Theres always guys willing to try or learn, yes, thats correct learn. First off your not dealing from the same deck here like say , poker. So what do you do? You need to hook more anglers than fish huh. Sweeten the pot, it works much better. Remember your the ones needing new players.

Pull pills for partners, this will allow some inexperienced or non-boaters a chance
Make the pay-out partially progressive, keep some back and award points to teams. Each angler keeps his points and the next tourney you pull pills again. Now you can keep some people around by giving them a crack at payback again.
End of the night disclosure, seems this keeps MO tourneys going, and friendly

Save the aggressive team tourney fishing for full day tourneys, you have to grow your sport. Premature harvests aren't near as productive. I only wish it wasn't 2 1/2hrs away.

Will this work, who knows. But its got to be better than including the whole state in tiny comments. Good luck

Wow! Theres an idea Crappiedoc. I like your line of thinking. I know that the Topeka capital journal and the kc star have there hunting/fishing pages every Sunday. Don't think they would cost much if any to advertise the week before. If you took a portion of the big fish pot to spend on raffle items. I think it would be awesome to match each tournament boat with a junior or amature fisherman. I know that KDWP does something similar with kids. You could probably get a list from them of prospective outdoorsman. It would bring a lot of parents/people out. Have a barbecue and give the fish away at the end. Just remember PASS IT ON! Everything but your good secrets.