Thread: A real fruit jar general discussion.

Hot digity. A real discussion. Ain't seen a knife nor a tire iron yet....but I think Minner might have some brass knuckles stashed somewhere so ya'll keep an eye on him.

This really is what I was hoping for, some well thought out discussion on the subject to improve things. And to any of you lurkers that don't post, or have never been to but one or maybe even none of the FJs, don't be shy. You're the ones I'm wanting to show up at the next one or next years if we tweak things a little to make it more attractive to you.

So far, this is what I've got - Divisions are out, but we need to adjust the schedule to start a bit later and run a bit longer....maybe add 1 or 2 south lakes.....Honestly, I'm not sure about the South Delta lakes like Eagle or Chotard though...that's like way off from everybody.....even the Jackson clan......what if we just did Ross Barnett twice and maybe Okitibee once? Wouldn't that be closer? Not sure....Heck Ross Barnett is a good enough lake to do it 3 times if need be.

If we expand the schedule do we keep the 3 to qualify or should we up the qualification...say to 4 or 5? I agree with, I think ESs comment.....no one can commit to specific dates to fish a year out and I never expected everyone to fish every FJ. That's asking too much.....having said that, I think it's important that in order to qualify for a chance at the "big money", you should be required to contribute to the building of the pot to a degree. Just not sure if we expand to 8 regular FJs + the championship if we should require 4 or 5....with guys like Speck and Creek, I sort of feel like we'd be asking too much to drive into a full 5...especially if you consider that their contribution to the championship is only $5 per tournament, but they'd be shelling out $400 to $600 to come for the weekend. Just talking it though. Would be interested to hear what you two think about the expanded schedule and expanded qualification.

One other thought - Arkabutla...Personally, I don't care for it and I know others have expressed the same sentiment at times....it's just a hard lake to love. I hate to suggest this on account of Mr. Jim being our honorary host, but it has consistently drawn the least boats of any of them. I'd be interested to hear whether ya'll think we should drop it and maybe double up on Sardis....you know the fish it's kicking out this year and it would stand to reason that it'd hold up for one more.

I also think that maybe the championship ought to be moved from Grenada next year. I enjoy having it here and it has the potential to be a home run derby on any date, but I confess a selfishness to wanting it here. If it'd help, maybe we ought to rotate it to another lake next year....Sardis? Ross Barnett? Maybe we should agree to have it on a different lake every year? Or is everyone happy with leaving it in Grenada and hoping we get a perfect storm of weather and fish cooperation for a chance at a slug fest? Again, just wanting to discuss it and I'm open.

Wannabe...

I want to offer a perspective from a new guy that doesn't have a dog in the fight.

1) The $50 entry fee is about right. People fish these FJ's for bragging rights among friends; a couple hundred $'s to win is nice but not the main motivator. If you increase the payout you will have guys coming to fish for your money but don't want to stay and eat with you.

2) If I had fished all 6 FJ's this year I could have driven to four of them the morning of the tournament and would have stayed overnight for two of them. That's 4-2 for me, and I bet it works out the same for 75% of everyone else. I think if you start changine things alot for everyone you include you will be excluding someone else.

3) Crappie fishing is an expensive habit. Try to keep the costs moderate, but noone is expecting to make money.

4) As far as holding the tournaments on Saturday. I think it makes a statement that somethings are more important than fishing. I don't know if this statement was intentional or not, but I appreciate it.
As for getting off on Saturday. Where my wife works they are open 363 days a year. So to get off on Saturdays she has to plan ahead. For the rest of the FJ's she has taken off Fri.- Sat.- Sun. for each of them. To do this she will have to work a couple of 13 day stretches with no days off. If she has to she will use some of her vacation days.
If it is important to you, you will get the time off to fish.

5) From my observations decisions need to be made by committee. And the committee needs to be elected yearly.
There are some hotheads on here that get twisted out of shape if their ideas are not agreed to or the poll doesn't go their way. With a commitee there is not a lot of debate.

6) I would fish a 8 tournament plus a championship March through November schedule. I believe this would allow for two more lakes.

First of all Don and Morris, you really cant set a scedule until the Crappie masters, USA, and Magnolia scedules hit the shelf. Not that any of us fish all the trails and its gonna effect attendance, but these guys buy permits for their lakes and that prevents other tournaments on the same days. I think we could make it real easy, have 12 tournaments, 1 for each month and alternate em between grenada and barnett. Or Sardis and Barnett, Whatever. The point is were overcomplicating things. Make it simple, make it cheap, and make it fun. Don now u know Y i didnt want to do the sced. this year.

Bigger you quit at the wrong time bro...we are paying DD big bucks for the duty this year..lol

Bigger why does someone buying a permit prevent another tournament?

I agree Bigger on you can't set the schedule until later one. When I set it up for this year, I looked at all of them (crappie Masters, CUSA, MCC) and then since several of the MCC guys said they wanted to fish with us, I set a few of them the week before a MCC tourney in hopes that several of them would fish our tourneys since they'd be there prefishing anyways. Nate, it took me to about 2 weeks BEFORE our first tourney to figure that out Bro. I started getting PM's, called out on the board and just bugged to death about things.I even put up the dates and asked for acceptance of it which was overwhelmingly positive on the dates I set. Whatever is set for next year, folks need to just accept whats there and fish if they can, not whine about it. I fish these cause they are fun and it ain't been fun with some of the things going on.

I kinda feel like this. Expand the FJ's to include more Southern lakes. At least 1 or 2 more. Keep the qualifications at 3 tournaments or better yet, just drop the championship altogether and just fish tournaments with 100% payback at each. These were created for us to get together and have fun, right??? Keep Arkabutala in! Sure it can be a booger to fish at times but talk about a home run derby potential!!! Every lake throws a different challenge. Thats part of the reason and fun of fishing different lakes.

Originally Posted by tritonman

Bigger why does someone buying a permit prevent another tournament?

Im pretty sure thats the purpose of the permitt, so there wont be 3 different crappie tournaments on the same lake at the same time. Kinda like reserving the pavillion.