Quote Originally Posted by ArToolMan View Post
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.