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2012 Thursday 3+1 Big Lake Tournament $100 / boat entry fee, covers 5 events. Scoring: Weekly cash prizes will be based on a point system. 3 salmon and 1 trout can be weighed. 10 points / fish + one point / pound. Ex. Three 12lb. salmon and one 10lb Steelhead would be 86 points. Year-end winner determined by total points accumulated over all events. Dates: May 24th June 21st July 26th Aug 9th Aug 30th Weight in Location: Holland (DNR Fish cleaning station) Time: 6:00pm-10:15pm Rules: 1. Up to 9 rods may be fished at once per boat. 2. The number of people in your boat is not limited. 3. All DNR regulations apply. Feel free to catch your full limit but you can only weight your top three salmon and one trout species 4. Heaviest fish out of your weighed fish breaks all ties. 5. Notice will be given by 4:00pm the day of, if fishing is cancelled. Dates will only be cancelled due to weather/waves (wave cutoff will be for a forecast of 1-3 feet and expected to build). If you miss a date your money will not be refunded. Substitutions are OK if you are unable to make a date. Please have substitutes notify Tournament Control before take off. 6. If a date is cancelled due to the weather/waves the pot will be added to the next fish date. If this final date is cancelled it will be made up the following week 7. Take off will be from within 100 yards of the north break wall over the radio on channel 72. If you are late go ahead and fish but please notify tournament control. 8. You must check in at the weigh in site (DNR Fish cleaning Station) by 10:15pm. Tournament Control has the official time. Check it before leaving. It is each boats responsibility to be checked in at the tournament table by the cleaning station by 10:15pm with Tournament Control. Those failing to do so for any reason will be disqualified for that event, No excuses. 9. This is an AMATEUR ONLY EVENT. This means NO charter captains, NO first mates and NO charter boats, past or present, are to participate. Violation of this rule will result in immediate disqualification for the rest of the season. 10. All tournament participants are encouraged to notify tournament control of possible violation of ANY rule for review by tournament board members.

The rule is stated correctly as is. Here is the deal with this rule, it's not intended to upset anyone but is in place for a reason. We have discussed this rule a great deal over the off season and feel it is in the best interest of the tournament to keep it as is. All of us board members have participated in very similar tournament where it was mostly amateur teams and 1 or two charter boats would show up and take the pot every week. I'm not complaining about this at all because there was nothing prohibiting this in the rules of that tournament, in fact it can be fun to compete agains the pros to expand my skills, however I know that there were people who shied away from that tournament because they knew there was very little chance they could be competitive. As far as excluding "A Lot" of people I would have to respectfully disagree. In the years that i have been in this hobby i have made quite a few friends that fish and maybe 1 or 2 of them has been a captain or first mate. In fact, quite the opposite was true for us in organizing this tournament last year. The number of people willing to join because of this rule far exceeded the number of folks we had to turn away because they didn't qualify. Again, sorry if you feel left out, were not trying to be jerks, honestly, we had good intentions when putting this rule into effect and are trying to run the tournament with integrity. If you don't qualify for this tournament there are several others that I'm sure you do qualify for that some in this tournament would be intimidated to enter, myself included. Regardless, I will be in some of those big tournaments with you this year and I'm sure you will spank me! Also, since we already have several teams signed up to participate under the current rules, I don't think it would be fair to change them now. As far as being paid to be an observer, I'm assuming you were not actually being paid to "fish", rather "observe". In that case you're more than welcome to join. Hope this clears things up a bit, my apologies to those offended.

basically charter captains, first mates, or charter boats, past or present, or anyone who receives pay for fishing would not be amateur.

@ BenLubbs. We do a one time entry fee at the beginning of the season That way everyone has an equal amount invested into the year end payout. If you have a situation where you cannot make an event you may have someone fish in your place as long as they are an amateur as well. @Dave Ash - If at all interested please send me an email at [email protected] so i can keep you up to date on what's going on. Hope you can join us!

Hello all, I just posted some details about a thursday night fishing league that we started in holland in the "Tournaments" section. Check it out if your interested.

Last year a few of my buddies and I started a Thursday night fishing tournamnet league out of the port of Holland Michigan for amature anglers to connect and compete in friendly spirit. This tournament consisted of 5 events over the span of the summer. We had 11 boats sign up and participate in the tournament for the first year and we had a blast. This year we would like to expand and add a few more teams. The tournament has simple rules. You can weight 3 salmon and 1 trout, hence the name of the tournament “Thursday 3 Plus 1â€. Scoring is on a point system. You get 10 points for each fish you weigh plus your total weight. We’ve structured the tournament this way because we belive that it gives anglers from every experience level a decent shot at doing well. Each event begins with a shotgun start at the holland peirheads at 6pm and teams must report to tournament control at the Holland DNR fish cleaning station at 10:15pm for weigh in. Entry fee is $100 per team which covers all 5 events. The pot is divided up evenly among the five events. Each weekly pot is divided up with 50% going to 1st place, 20% to second place, 20% to big fish, and 10% goes back into a pot for the year end overall point leaders. The dates are as follows: May 24 June 21 July 26 August 9 August 30 We will also have a captains meeting May 9 at the Grandvilla Resturant In Grandville at 7pm. This meeting is not mandatory but highly recommended, especially for those just starting this year. Anyone interested please send me an email at [email protected] and I will provide you with the rest of the rules and sign up sheet. Hope we see you there!