Thread: A real fruit jar general discussion.

Originally Posted by oleblue

I have never got one my biggest is 4.2 but I can tell you I have seen old men get fish that were 5 or less than a oz off out of that lake and I have never heard any more about them.

As a kid, I lived next door to one of those old men. He'd go out for a few hours and come home with 2 or 3 fish...HUGE fish. Just enough for supper.

Originally Posted by Chilly

I agree with ES about who should fish the FJ's. At least one of them should be a member of C.com. That will keep the locals, ones with no job and fish everyday or the ones whose job it is to fish every day, from taking the money. Much like what happened this week-end. First and Second place left with the money did not hang out at all, just took the cash and went on down the road. Although there is nothing wrong with this, I just did not think this is what these tournaments were really for. I would think the FJ's are more about braggin' rites, fellowship, and BECOMING BETTER ANGLERS.

It would be nice for the winners to say what they did to catch the fish. Not necessarily point out the exact spot they were fishing, but at least some info that would be benificial to whoever is gonna fish the next day. You know something like we caught them in 20' of water pushing cranks at 17' in the main river the best color was electric chicken, or single poling the grass in feeder creeks in 18" of water using a purple hair jig with some chartruse in it. This would help out some of us new guys that ain't that good at catching them and give us something to try when the bite is as poor as it was last week-end. This way, even if you did not catch them on Saturday, you might be able to put something together on Sunday, if you stay and fish. This would more than offset the $50 for getting in the tournament, 20 boats worth of info can go along way. At least give you a clue on what NOT to do (i.e. anything I do, do the opposite and you will probably do allright).

Very much along the lines of what I wanted to say last night but didn't. The camps were originally for visiting with friends on the board and about everyone catching a bunch of fish. Now everyone at the camp has lockjaw cause they don't want anyone to know where the fish are. No offense meant to the folks that fish the FJ's but I wish we would separate the camps from the tournaments.

Ok, now let me have it!

Originally Posted by rip-a-lip

...The camps were originally for visiting with friends on the board and about everyone catching a bunch of fish. Now everyone at the camp has lockjaw cause they don't want anyone to know where the fish are. No offense meant to the folks that fish the FJ's but I wish we would separate the camps from the tournaments.

There's a thought...

Not gonna let ya have on this one rip, I kind of agree with you and chilly a little on this one. I don't mind getting whooped by nobody, even WB and DD when they can get lucky. I do think that to fish, win and run is kind of wrong in this setting.

Rip, you best stick to the kitchen and leave the tournament thinkin' to us. Really enjoyed meeting you this weekend and was really glad you brought your family too. I agree on the "ok, spill it, how'd you take my money" portion at the weigh in. I'll see if I can't make a point of asking and doing a better job of at least asking them to say a little something about the hows and wheres when I hand out the prize money. It's just always been a little chaotic for me, so the lack of that opportunity has been my fault, but I'll see if I can't do it at the next one.

I'm still extra adamant about not requiring somebody to be a "member"....heck, how would you determine who is and who ain't.....how long would they have to be members? How many posts would they have to have? Chilly is a good example (hope you don't mind) on this....as of today, he's only got 52 posts and only joined recently, but has been posting pics and doing quite well apparently. So the FJ rolls around and he's all in. I honestly thought he had the fish pinned and was gonna take it all. Turns out, he came to 333 and met everybody, brought his wife, fished and stuck around to get to know everybody and now he's one of us. But...would we have "qualifed" him before the FJ? I dunno, but I'd be there would have been some dissention over it....no question now though, he r us.

G3Troller or Trent is another example.....since we all didn't know him very well, we're considering him a jack-potter, but in my mind, he's just relatively new and I'll bet we'll see him more on the board and at other FJs as well. Good fella either way and there's no reason to exclude him or anyone else. Least not a good one in my mind.

On the other hand, there was a local that signed up at the ramp on Washington to jack pot us and the Maj put him down like a sack of taters with a thud. In effect, we took his money and made him cry.....actually, he was a pretty good guy from what I could tell and his fish just packed their bags and moved on and with the weather and the small boat he had, he was whipped and wet and tired and called it a day. He'd said he'd try and fish some more, but haven't talked to him since....but that's life.

Wannabe...

I'm glad to hear you guys say that. I've been involved since the first one at Sardis. Regretfully, I couldn't make either of the camps last year but they are the only two I have missed. This past camp was just different.

I would love to see a poll for the dates and location. Let the people speak!

I apologize for steering this thread in another direction. Let's drop the "members only" thing and get back to tournament scheduling.

I would still like to see more FJ's. Sardis in February. Who care if only 5 boats show up? All we need are some scales, pen and paper

No reason to apologize ES. None at all. I'm open to discuss anything. I don't like the "members only" deal, but that's my opinion only...you can be wrong if you want. LOL. Really, if I turn out to be the minority, I'll yield....just not sure how we'd qualify somebody and it would make it harder to grow our group.

Wannabe...

WB and ES are right. Might make some new members outta some people...new members, new ideas.

Rip's statements "Now everyone at the camp has lockjaw cause they don't want anyone to know where the fish are. No offense meant to the folks that fish the FJ's but I wish we would separate the camps from the tournaments." rings a bell. Seperate the two. Camp is about fellowship and fun.

Not that the FJs aren't fun, but they're mostly about competition...