General consensus on tournament attendance

I haven’t fished a lot of tournaments over the last few years but when I have the main thing I noticed was the number of boats in the field. There’s several tournament directors in this bunch so I’m sure they would like to know what could be improved on to increase the numbers but my main question is, why is the normal field size only 15-25 boats? I know a few years ago some would say “I don’t have livescope and can’t compete against those that do.” Which was definitely debunked this past Saturday with a team without forward facing sonar taking 1st place in the live division. Regardless that can’t really be used as an excuse anymore because I believe all the local tournaments now have a live division and traditional division.

For those that haven’t tried tournament fishing yet, I highly suggest giving it a go a few times. I think the bug has bitten me this year and the extra rush you get when there’s money on the line is worth the $100 entry fee. All opinions all welcome, just a general curiosity that I have.


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:popcorn

People cheat

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Originally Posted by Micanopy

People cheat

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Sadly that is the way for some. Money and prestige have a way of testing the morals of some, but thankfully not all

I’ve never had the feeling that I was being cheated against. Some of these guys out here are just plain hammers and going to always be in the top 3. With that being said I don’t ever foresee the big tournament organizations coming east due to the lack of tournament participation. I know crappieUSA was bought out by crappie masters and noticed that they are not coming to Santee next year like they normally do. That could just be a scheduling conflict or it could be for other reasons, not sure but low turnout doesn’t help any.


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Fishing equipment, boat maintenance, GAS...some guys simply don't have the extra $100 laying around right now. Others feel like they simply donate to the same "hammers" each weekend.

And honestly, who cares if the big tourney organizations come East or not. Lakes today are pressured enough. Bring a huge tourney to your area, put the spotlight on your local lake, and watch the whirlwind of boaters who come from all over to fish.

After MLF came to Falls, Jordan, and Harris, I frequently spotted tags from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and WV. All of them saying the same thing "We saw those boys on TV wearing them out down here and decided to plan a trip."

I am not against tournament fishing for Crappie, just more of the "be careful what you wish for". Before you know it spots that you have fished your whole life are covered with folks and the bite gets tougher and tougher day by day.

One thing I’ve heard from people is that they want to see tournaments as tournaments and not potentially money makers for the organizers. Mathematics of entries vs payouts in tournaments not labeled as benefit tournaments have soured some folks. No doubt it takes dedication, time, and effort. I’m not sure how they’re generally ran or supposed to be ran, I think transparency regardless, was wanted.

I was reluctant to fish them because of confidence. I started last year and realized just how hard fishing for 7 fish is. This weekend as you saw, I finished 15th of 22. One of the worst showings I’ve have. It rattled me. However last year, in the CCC championship, I had the best day I’ve had on High Rock, in my boat, and ended up third in the championship after Todd posted a strong day 2 on Tuckertown and Quan and Jordan had the day of a life time in Day 1 on HR. It goes to show that even the inexperienced tourny guy like me can have a good showing on a given day.

I’ve met incredible people that have helped me become better at what I do. Certain individuals have taken me under their wing, helped me, challenged me, and pushed me to do better and be better. I never had that outside of the competitive world, at least not in the capacity that I do now.

As far as the money to enter and fish go, I can wizz away an entry fee a month on stupid stuff, so I do a little extra, or cut back a little extra to make room in the funds to at least be able to fish one trail, and hopefully a few other odd ball tournies when I can.

Some of the older generation are reluctant to fish because it’s become a technology based game, even though Pete and Josh put it to us this past weekend “old school” style. No doubt, as they showed, it’s possible, with Joshua showing strong in the Church tourny in HR a few weeks ago, and catching a 3+ on HR during YRT last year, but generally, barring their rock star performances, that isn’t the norm compared to a hammer with forward facing sonar. I’d be scared if they ever got it ��

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Originally Posted by TreednNC

One thing I’ve heard from people is that they want to see tournaments as tournaments and not potentially money makers for the organizers. Mathematics of entries vs payouts in tournaments not labeled as benefit tournaments have soured some folks. No doubt it takes dedication, time, and effort. I’m not sure how they’re generally ran or supposed to be ran, I think transparency regardless, was wanted.

I was reluctant to fish them because of confidence. I started last year and realized just how hard fishing for 7 fish is. This weekend as you saw, I finished 15th of 22. One of the worst showings I’ve have. It rattled me. However last year, in the CCC championship, I had the best day I’ve had on High Rock, in my boat, and ended up third in the championship after Todd posted a strong day 2 on Tuckertown and Quan and Jordan had the day of a life time in Day 1 on HR. It goes to show that even the inexperienced tourny guy like me can have a good showing on a given day.

I’ve met incredible people that have helped me become better at what I do. Certain individuals have taken me under their wing, helped me, challenged me, and pushed me to do better and be better. I never had that outside of the competitive world, at least not in the capacity that I do now.

As far as the money to enter and fish go, I can wizz away an entry fee a month on stupid stuff, so I do a little extra, or cut back a little extra to make room in the funds to at least be able to fish one trail, and hopefully a few other odd ball tournies when I can.

Some of the older generation are reluctant to fish because it’s become a technology based game, even though Pete and Josh put it to us this past weekend “old school� style. No doubt, as they showed, it’s possible, with Joshua showing strong in the Church tourny in HR a few weeks ago, and catching a 3+ on HR during YRT last year, but generally, barring their rock star performances, that isn’t the norm compared to a hammer with forward facing sonar. I’d be scared if they ever got it ��

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This is very well said. Especially the part about watching spending habits as I am a truck driver and it’s very easy for me to spend $5-10/day just on lunch and a few weeks ago I started packing my lunch again which in turn saves me $25-50 a week.


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I agree with a lot said in the previous post. I probably started tournament fishing over ten years ago. The number of friends I have made and the knowledge I have learned far exceeds any money I have spent. I can remember when I first started out that while teams were weighing-in their fish, I would walk up and down the parking lot looking at the boats. What colors of jigheads, grubs (curly or paddle) and if they were using minnows or not. You can attend seminars in the Winter and watch lots of YouTube videos on crappie fishing, but what you learn in the parking lot chatting with fellow competitors far exceeds the other ways of learning.

:popcorn
Wanted to but I got to be able to catch fish :Rofl
Two classes left in degree till I can really start fishing and really learn. Fishing with Bama eventually will probably teach me a lot

Clark, alot of tx , out of Jordan,are limited to the amount of entries. So tx director doesn't have to pay for permit. And some ramps, only let ( x amount) . All big tx's on Jordan, come out of Farrington ramp , for that reason. Mlf this year did it. Even though there are better ramps

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Originally Posted by Mbsbeek

Clark, alot of tx , out of Jordan,are limited to the amount of entries. So tx director doesn't have to pay for permit. And some ramps, only let ( x amount) . All big tx's on Jordan, come out of Farrington ramp , for that reason. Mlf this year did it. Even though there are better ramps

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First time hearing this. Hard to believe if it’s true.


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I’ve been in 80+ bass boat tournament out of farrington before so the boat numbers wouldn’t be any issue as far as a crappie tournament goes.


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Originally Posted by Mbsbeek

Clark, alot of tx , out of Jordan,are limited to the amount of entries. So tx director doesn't have to pay for permit. And some ramps, only let ( x amount) . All big tx's on Jordan, come out of Farrington ramp , for that reason. Mlf this year did it. Even though there are better ramps

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Nc does not charge for a tournament wieghin permit, the purpose is soley to prevent and over crowded area with multiple tourneys going on at the same ramp, if you ever encounter this more than likely one of the trails does not have said permit

The NC Wildlife operates the Farrington ramp and the Park Service the other ramps (exception may be Robeson). The Park Service collects money during the warmer months. I hear Wildlife doesn't care how many tournaments and their ramps are open 24 x 7.

I agree with all the above, ya'll made some good points. As a 20+ year crappie tournament fisherman and putting on the MP Church tournament for 13 straight years I have come to the conclusion that there are a limited number of tournament fishermen in any given area. We have moved our tournament from lake to lake with very little difference in the number of boats. We have been on High Rock for the last several years because we seem to get the best turnout. We have tried many ways to get more boats. We were the first to go from 8 fish to 7 fish, we reduced the rod count from 16 to 12, we pay 11 places, male/female, parent/child, 1st big fish and 2nd big fish, skins game (up to $350 next year) and the biggie we pay non live sonar the same as live sonar. And the results? Well, we still get 30-35 boats no matter what we do. We pay out $4,650 in cash and over $500 in prizes. Our best year ever we raised like $2,700 +/- for the church. I sometimes think it would be more beneficial for the church to just give the $4,650 and not fish. But we fish to build interest to the sport, to have fellowship, expose kids to the sport, encourage men to fish with their wives, have fun and lastly raise a little money. There is the Lake Jordon group, the South Carolina group and our group. We do from time to time have entries from outside our immediate area as we did this year. I have fished the Jordan tournaments and some South Carolina tournaments as well. As a whole I tend to stick with the Yadkin Lakes. Guys I wish I had the answer but for me it depends on the date, my granddaughters softball schedule, my grandsons deer hunting, my daughters horse shows and numerous other church events. We take our turnout as a blessing. If its 20, 30, 40 boats or whatever. Just my thoughts.

With gas $3-$4/gallon and the expenses of everything else going up as it has, most probably don't have as much expendable income. I'd say that hurts as much as anything. Many can't afford a $100 entry fee, and certainly not a $400 one. Rod has the lowest entry fee's and the most participation year in and year out as far s trails go.

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Originally Posted by TreednNC

even though Pete and Josh put it to us this past weekend “old school” style. No doubt, as they showed, it’s possible, with Joshua showing strong in the Church tourny in HR a few weeks ago, and catching a 3+ on HR during YRT last year, but generally, barring their rock star performances, that isn’t the norm compared to a hammer with forward facing sonar. I’d be scared if they ever got it ��

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Is this a challenge Justin? ����
For anyone that says they tournament fish for the money is completely full of crap!
Im always glad to fish any tournament for a challenge, and the comorodory. Ive met some awesome folks over the last few years, and to be quite frank, tournaments are one of the few times i get to fish with my good buddy Josh!

There are few people that you have that tournament chemistry with, and Josh is the only person (for crappie) i can say we do.

We started last year with the hopes that there would be many participants in the non live scope division. We are pretty upset at the lack of turnout in both trails, but its not going to stop us!. Originally the thought was that too many folks are intimidated by it all, but that no longer can be an excuse with both divisions now.
After seeing some of our finishes over the last few years, we can definitely hang in the top 6-8 in most events.
No doubt that local knowledge (and some pre fishing) played a HUGH part in last Saturday for us. Some times we each prefish in our own boats, compare notes without even talking on the water once done for the day, then fine tune things on day 2 just before a tournament.

The story about the 3lb fish from last year.....days prior, i had covid and we made the decision for me to stay away from the tournament crowd, so i helped prefish on my own boat. We had them fish dialed in the day before, and glad he got that hammer.
I joke around with every hookset now and say "oh boy thats that 3.07 ��" (his was 3.06...caught on the side of the boat i would have been fishing! )

As far as the whole livescope thing, i am primarily a striper fisherman! I still cannot justify getting it only to use for these tournaments and a little fun fishing! Better believe though that im a quick learner and may turn deadly!

I’d be worried if you got it �� not going to lie.

I don’t fish for the money, but it’s a little harder to drive across the state, say for me, LKN to Jordan, to justify trying to fish for $400 first place, and the rest of the places respectfully, than it is $1000+ and then the rest of the places paid out below.

It’s a weird sweet spot between enough to want to fish for and cost prohibitive to even try, for a lot of folks, myself included.


My main reason is the knowledge I’ve gained and friendships made along the way. I’m not out to make friends, I’m perfectly content alone, but it’s nice to connect with like minded people people that gain your trust, and you their’s, and sharpening those skills.

Before tourny fishing I’d leave and say “guess they weren’t biting”. Now I look back and say, “they had 9.55 and I had 7.43, where did I miss catching that extra 2.13 I needed to beat them”.

I’d be worried if you got it 😂 not going to lie.

I don’t fish for the money, but it’s a little harder to drive across the state, say for me, LKN to Jordan, to justify trying to fish for $400 first place, and the rest of the places respectfully, than it is $1000+ and then the rest of the places paid out below.

It’s a weird sweet spot between enough to want to fish for and cost prohibitive to even try, for a lot of folks, myself included.


My main reason is the knowledge I’ve gained and friendships made along the way. I’m not out to make friends, I’m perfectly content alone, but it’s nice to connect with like minded people people that gain your trust, and you their’s, and sharpening those skills.

Before tourny fishing I’d leave and say “guess they weren’t biting”. Now I look back and say, “they had 9.55 and I had 7.43, where did I miss catching that extra 2.13 I needed to beat them”.

Very well said right there.


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agree with many here..it's nice to test your skills in a real competition

I used to tournament fish all around the piedmont. My best fishing buddy passed, another moved to Arkansas, and a third got remarried. I lost all my best fishing partners in less than a year. I also lost motivation and since I don't spend as much time on the water, I'm not on top of the fish like I used to be. Pretty much, the more you go, the better your chances are of finding & catching.

Jim