WMFL Rule Changes

[Paulywood]

After hearing from most of the teams I have decided not to change to a 9 rod rule. I am reluctant to change anything during the season and a couple of teams were not really sold on the change. These are the rules we agreed to before it started so I am going to keep them as is. This would be a better issue to tackle during the offseason IMO.

Nick

[1mainiac]

Nick scratch me form the next tourney at Port Sheldon I don't want to offend anyone but it is not worth the boat gas. The last event took 72 in boat gas 10 bucks in truck diesel and 15 to enter and paid 27 bucks for 2nd place. I can fish 2 days in Muskegon for the same money and run as many lines as I want. I may fish in the last 2 events at Muskegon. When you mentioned going to 9 lines I thought I would give Sheldon one more try but if there is little to no chance of even breaking even on the trip I am going to fish at home.

[GLF]

I have to agree with Nick. Its never a good idea to change the rules during the middle of the season.

[1mainiac]

My decision is only slightly based on the lack of rule change we were already discussing not going back to Sheldon after the last event. When the discussion of going to a 9 rod event came up I decided to give it one more try. I even talked to friend with a 17ft boat about fishing on his boat and he was not interested in fishing with 6 lines. I don't care for how close the bottom is to my drive as I have removed a lot of paint off it in just a few trips there. I can setup 20 rod holders and have 23 rods on board so running over 40 miles total to fish 6 rods the last time had us discussing giving up on the tourney and running a full spread and if not for the fact based on radio reports we were well in the lead at 9:30 in the morn we might have done it. If I had kept my mouth shut we probably would have won cause we were the only boat on fish and out that deep. We were sorting fish and upgrading before anyone else had their 5.

[tgafish]

I understand your logic but if you fish these events for the chance at money you'll always have a chance at being disappointed. The friendships and company are the real payoff. But again I understand the cost to get there is a hard pill to swallow.

Fishing should be good out of PS July 11:grin:

[1mainiac]

I am not fishing for the money but can still do the math I love to fish and I am fairly competetive so can have fun at a small tourney. I really don't think anyone in this can't run more than 6 rods I haven't seen anyone in a rowboat yet. I personally love to run 12 rods and stay busy cause even when the fish are not biting you are constantly making changes to your spread but with 6 lines you don't get very many choices to figure out what will work. And you can't really dbl up on anything without giving up on something else first. So if I can't win any money and it is not much fun why enter?

[2UNREEL]

Nick scratch me form the next tourney at Port Sheldon I don't want to offend anyone but it is not worth the boat gas. The last event took 72 in boat gas 10 bucks in truck diesel and 15 to enter and paid 27 bucks for 2nd place. I can fish 2 days in Muskegon for the same money and run as many lines as I want. I may fish in the last 2 events at Muskegon. When you mentioned going to 9 lines I thought I would give Sheldon one more try but if there is little to no chance of even breaking even on the trip I am going to fish at home.

Jim I think you may be in the wrong sport my friend. If your not willing to spend some money then you should'nt play. If 72 bucks is all you spent thats getting away cheap. The WMFL is a fun league and you should know that your not going to get rich fishing in it. As far as the 6 rods go its to keep it fair for the guys that only have 1 buddy fishing and I think thats what keeps people comming. If your interested in making a living fishing than you need to join up with the big boys and fish the Tournament Trail. Somethimes I think that these should be beer leagues with no money pools so that everyone can enjoy themselves and maybe a few side bets between friends.

[fishsniffer]

Jim I think you may be in the wrong sport my friend. If your not willing to spend some money then you should'nt play. If 72 bucks is all you spent thats getting away cheap. The WMFL is a fun league and you should know that your not going to get rich fishing in it. As far as the 6 rods go its to keep it fair for the guys that only have 1 buddy fishing and I think thats what keeps people comming. If your interested in making a living fishing than you need to join up with the big boys and fish the Tournament Trail. Somethimes I think that these should be beer leagues with no money pools so that everyone can enjoy themselves and maybe a few side bets between friends.

ive met a lot of great people thru these tourneys and this website....ive have multitudes more fishing friends becouse of these tourneys and thats way more important than entry fees and paybacks...since joining these leagues and meeting some of the people ive fished from south haven to ludington...ive had experiances i wouldnt trade for any tourney payout...theres nothing better than calling up someone and getting some up to the second info on whats going on in say south haven that may get something going where im at...i feel i could call,2unreel,dirtydog,plumcrazy,glf,jimusseretc,etc and ask what they are catching on and they would tell me exactly what they are doing and they would get the same from me...and all this came about from these tourneys and websites

[Paulywood]

Hey guys, if Jim doesn't feel like making the drive to Pt. Sheldon that's his choice. In these tough times people have to make tough decisions. However, I do feel that things like the WMFL are important. That is the reason I took over when Rich was unable to run the League this year. I have made a lot of good friends and learned a lot that helps put more fish in the boat. And I have to drive 2+ hours for each event. The money is just to make it interesting. That being said, I don't have any problem with changing the rules, just feel that it would be better to change them during the offseason. I am taking off for Mackinac Island tomorrow so everyone have a good week.

Nick

[1mainiac]

Guys it really is not just the money I did not want to fish Port Sheldon in my boat at all I don't like the place. It is too shallow for my boat all the paint that is missing from my lower unit was lost fishing there. In both events we have discussed DQ ing ourselves and just fishing. When Nick mentioned going to 9 lines at the last event I figured what the heck one more trip won't kill me and might be more fun with the extra lines. I just can't see risking my lower unit and prop to fish in a fun event. Just like last year when Sixshooter took over to finish up and said he was going to move it out of Fishermans Landing I told him to drop me from the list then he left it at Fishermans and I fished them. I got into this last year because it was a charity event and sounded cool to have some fun. I have met some great people but I still hate fishing out of Sheldon and if your boatwas as close to dragging bottom as mine was you would likely feel the same.

[DIRTY DOG]

i hope now one takes this the wrong way , but , hers a idea , "for next season" ,

what if we would start up a little meet and great type of group , kinda like we did in south haven early this season , (this was a lot of fun)where how ever wants to come can come no money in volved and just go out and fish and have a good time , and maybe travel from one port to the next as the season pogresses it could be a 1 or 2 day type thing, just something to think about.

[Nailer]

Somethimes I think that these should be beer leagues with no money pools so that everyone can enjoy themselves and maybe a few side bets between friends.

Darn, I thought this was a Beer League;)

ive met a lot of great people thru these tourneys and this website....ive have multitudes more fishing friends becouse of these tourneys and thats way more important than entry fees and paybacks. theres nothing better than calling up someone and getting some up to the second info on whats going on in say south haven that may get something going where im at...i feel i could call,2unreel,dirtydog,plumcrazy,glf,jimusseretc,etc and ask what they are catching on and they would tell me exactly what they are doing and they would get the same from me...and all this came about from these tourneys and websites

I agree with you %100 here Don.

Jim, we'll miss you at Port Sheldon, but look forward to seeing you in Muskegon.

Nick, enjoy your trip!

[1mainiac]

Terry I have been thinking of the same thing I would like to get a few guys to do some night fishing during the week. Mike discussed it last year just not sure if we could get a group together and work out the rules. I was thinking of just a side bet deal biggest fish wins 5 or 10 bucks a boat weigh in at 11 pm. Or even skip the money entirely and just see who can bring in the best box not sure yet need more input.

[fishsniffer]

i hope now one takes this the wrong way , but , hers a idea , "for next season" ,

what if we would start up a little meet and great type of group , kinda like we did in south haven early this season , (this was a lot of fun)where how ever wants to come can come no money in volved and just go out and fish and have a good time , and maybe travel from one port to the next as the season pogresses it could be a 1 or 2 day type thing, just something to think about.

sounds good to me

[j1musser]

i hope now one takes this the wrong way , but , hers a idea , "for next season" ,

what if we would start up a little meet and great type of group , kinda like we did in south haven early this season , (this was a lot of fun)where how ever wants to come can come no money in volved and just go out and fish and have a good time , and maybe travel from one port to the next as the season pogresses it could be a 1 or 2 day type thing, just something to think about.

ive met a lot of great people thru these tourneys and this website....ive have multitudes more fishing friends becouse of these tourneys and thats way more important than entry fees and paybacks...since joining these leagues and meeting some of the people ive fished from south haven to ludington...ive had experiances i wouldnt trade for any tourney payout...theres nothing better than calling up someone and getting some up to the second info on whats going on in say south haven that may get something going where im at...i feel i could call,2unreel,dirtydog,plumcrazy,glf,jimusseretc,etc and ask what they are catching on and they would tell me exactly what they are doing and they would get the same from me...and all this came about from these tourneys and websites

I agree and feel the same way. That was a great time in SH with all the GLF guys. :DWish i could get in on the WMFL. Lots of help spending my money and putting some fish in the freezer:)

[Just Hook'n]

Sorry I started this huge discussion Nick. Honestly thought it might be easy, as a few boats were saying the same thing (9 rods would be nice). I thought if I was thinking it, others were too and maybe we could get more boats to join the competition. oh well. You know I am in. Hell, I dock in PS. I just have to figure out how to get up to Muskegon for the last two.

[1mainiac]

No problem Mark I thought it was a great idea and since this is really not about winning any real money cause no matter how you do the math there is no way to make much if any money doing this. I really doubt anyone in any tournament really makes much money even winning the TT events by the time you figure in what you have invested. I guess I can say that I won a GLFTT event maybe add that to my signature line LOL but heck I dropped more than I won into the boat gas tank and it did not even burp LOL. So for me this is about fun and friends my problem is I dislike Port Sheldon since it has polished my lower unit a few times my wife refuses to fish there. It seems like there were more boats fishing in it last year but I don't remember for sure in any event I am going to stick to deeper water.

[Tad Pole]

We fish out of port sheldon 90% of the time.The Tad Pole is not a real big boat but still pretty good size, we did run aground once becouse the lower unit went to the trailer position and wouldn't go back down but that is another story.last year when the water was the lowest we saw some 3 1/2 foot depth areas if ya draw more than then ya might have a issue.

Port Sheldon like allot of other launches its more about knowing where not to go becouse there is some REAL shallow water in there but also there is enough if ya look for it

[1mainiac]

Specs say 31in draft but with all the gear and 3 or 4 guys is closer to 38in just tired of having to idle with my drive up to protect my prop and still turning up mud. And my kid just called this evening and wants to fish the Muskegon tourney and best of all he is buying the entry fee.