A real fruit jar general discussion.

LEAVE BUTLA OUT????????Pttttttttttttttttttt and pttt

You don't want to go to Wolf lake unless you have to and if you do, you want to go in July. Columbus and Okatibbee would be good additions. As far as a schedule, FJ"S set a schedule and if you can fish them fine, if not fine. I don't think we should be the last to set a schedule. How many c.coms fished Grenada CUSA, how many fished CM? What's going on is that the schedule is being set to accomadate 2 or 3 teams and that isn't fair to the rest of the teams. We should have had our Grenada tournament the last week-end of March and got in on some of the big pre-spawn fish. We can get a permit for our tournaments just like the other folks can. No one buys a permit. If there is a tournament on a corp lake, it must be registered with the corp office. Are our tournaments registered?

I too don't have a dog in this fight as for one reason or another we have not been able to come to one yet. That said one thing that may lead to more folks getting out of their home lake section would be to not have over 2 tournament in one section so you could not qualify for the championship by just staying in your home area. That also may not put the gas expense on the same folk most of the time. Just guessing.

I am brand new here and intend to fish a couple of the northern tournaments just to get to know some of the folks on here. I like others just can't afford some of the long drives and the expense of staying over. This year I had committed my one big trip a year money to a trout trip I had been going on before I joined here. Next year it will be to a southern tournament . Add another to the southern because I know how hard it is with expenses the way they are and it ain't gonna get any better. Pay back dosnt mean anything to me fished for 1.98 trophy in bass club in 80s just Fellowship with like minded people for me. Like WB i am selfish about Butla because it is pretty close to the house and would make 3 that I could drive to with Sardis and Enid. Butla is rough but no one but MrJim and Feelay might have an advantage and like someone else said, it could be a real home run for anyone. Don, had your job for a couple of years and it sure don't pay enough and never satisfied anyoneLoL.

Have I told you I HATE WOLF LAKE lol Course that was February when I fish it. YUCK. They do have a good crankbait bite though in the summer. Know Major and hit it last summer a few times and caught some good fish. I sure do wish it wouldn't have rained like it did for Grenada or we'd have had some awesome weights. Look at one week before at the MCC results. Think we had 6 or 8 teams over 16 pounds so that tells me we hit Grenada at just the right time.

The lakes we fish are.

Grenada
Barnett
Sardis
Washington
Enid
Butla
Wolf is wanted

Lets' look at those lakes
Washington is First to spawn. From there Barnett usually starts next. Then you have the COE lakes which all are actually real close to Barnetts peak. This year is abit odd with the cooler nights slowing things down n Barnett. Pelahatchie bay is just now winding down but the main lake is just hitting high gear. Last year on Grenada, I think ya'll we're later on than normal with the high water you had. I seem to remember Feelay and Bigger wearing out the 3 pounders in May. I don't know a thing about Butla but Enid and Sardis were getting good last I head

Here's my thoughts from what I know and in talking to many last year before I set the schedule up. I'm putting down the lakes and what's going on catching wise with each lake.

Mid March (Washington) Early Spawn
Early April (Barnett) Spawn
Late April (Grenada) Spawn
may (Butla) Spawn and post Spawn?
Late June (Sardis/Enid) Cranks heat up
July (Sardis/Enid) Cranks are hot now
August (Wolf) Cranks again are good
September ????
October (Barnett) Early fall bite, fish stacking up in River and old lake beds throughout the system.

Lets see your comments on this as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jimfish

LEAVE BUTLA OUT????????Pttttttttttttttttttt and pttt

---

Sorry Mr. Jim....just paying you back for making fun of my unfortunate license mishap. :)

Keep it coming guys. Honestly, I alternate back and forth on wanting to hear what everyone wants and thinking - you can't please everybody, so just do it the way I want to and hope everyone can make it. Basically run this thing like a certain president we all know but didn't vote for. :)

Wannabe...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ArToolMan

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.

---

atm, i perfectly understand about saturdays and sundays, i think sundays are important for other things sometimes, also. but in my case, i cannot schedule or plan in advance about days off, because i own my own store and have no body else to run it. i cannot close my business on saturday. also, i think the majority of people here fish on sundays anyway. it was just an idea, and either way, it's not gonna hurt my feelings.

We could do like we have done this year with the Tenn Tom Club. We have combined 2 tourneys with other tourneys on the same lake. This gives folks that wanna fesh fer mo money the chance to pay two or three entry fees or they can opt to fesh just one. I think I can arrange this next summer on Columbus to where there would be three tourneys that are ran off the same permit on the same lake. Fesh one, fesh two or fesh three.

As a matter of fact, May 14 we will have 2 tourneys going on ar Columbus that y'all are welcomed to fesh. One is the Tenn Tom Club open and the other is the Columbus Fire Dept Scholarship Benefit tourney. The entry fees are $40 & $60 respectively.

Sundays are for Church.

Several people have mentioned wanting the FJ's to grow and bring in more boats. If that is the direction people want this to go in then I would suggest stop scheduling around everyone elses tournament. Pick the best dates at the best lakes and stop playing second fiddle.
Personally I thought 22 boats at a FJ was pretty impressive.