2014 MSCST Polls

[1mainiac]

We would like some input on our Points system. The options are simple

1. Change nothing

2. Return to old points 10 per fish plus weight

3. Try something different

[Far Beyond Driven]

I don't fish the league, sometime I might, but I kind of like the 20 points for Brown's.

[1mainiac]

There is both good and bad in any points system for me the reason we changed was to match the WMFL so we could do heads up challenges that has not happened. We get some pretty nice browns up here so giving 20 points to a 15 lb brown hurts. We have not seen a lot of big lakers so cutting the points on them serves little purpose as well. If I had to make a new points system i would consider 10 for Salmon and Lake trout and 15 for Steelhead and Browns that however is just me and I have not discussed this with Don. Which is why I use I instead of we. Based on current thoughts I would say it is likely we will make a change and probably will go back to 10 per fish again nothing has been decided just something to talk about during winter.

[1mainiac]

Since we have votes for a new points system would those who voted that way like to make a suggestion as to what your idea is?

[1mainiac]

Still plenty of time to vote and or offer suggestions.

[DIRTY DOG]

Why bother with a points system and make it a catch a 3 man Limet and weigh all 15?

I don't fish this league , but why not do some thing like that?

[1mainiac]

Thanks Terry we started with catch 15 weigh 10 the problem was we only had a couple boats left in the Port Championship after the 2nd event. Also we have 2 man teams so they would never get a chance to win. With the 3 man DNR limit and weigh 6 everyone has a chance at winning. When the WMFL changed it's point system we changed as well with the idea of having a dual event to fish against them this has not happened yet. I honestly don't think there is a perfect points system but from my personal perspective my goal was to fish major tournament style rules on a beer budget so guys could learn to fish them without going broke. Many of the guys who fish with us have become much better anglers and for that I think we have been successful. We have some great sponsors and have been able to pass out a lot of fishing gear over the years which has been cool. I don't personally have a number perhaps Don does but my bet is we have given out over 5 grand in fishing gear in the last 3 years. So not to shabby for a small low entry fee tournament. The one great part is we all have fun and there is no arguments. We have not been without issues or problems but we have been able to sit down and solve them. I made some mistakes the first year and we sat down and decided how we would avoid them. Thankfully Don and I are good friends and he has been a great partner we don't have to think the same to find a idea we can agree on. As of right now both of us have some ideas and we want to get input from everyone else on what they like or don't like to help us decide on changes or no changes. From the current input I have received from the poll's and suggestions made to me. My guess is there will likely be few changes for next year. I suspect we will return to 10 points a fish plus weight for a points system. I don't see us adding boundaries as I am not sure there really is a need for them other than to force guys to use less gas and not run for better fishing. I do think we will change the Port Championship next year and raise the entry fee to pool money for it however this just my opinion Don and I have to get together after the holiday's and sort this out then we need to have a board meeting and vote on any changes.

[fishsniffer]

As with pretty much all tournaments the points systems are to reward more fish being caught. Example 8- 10lb fish getting beat by 5-18 lb fish. But arguments can be made by the 8 fish boat and the 5 fish boat on what the best would have been. Any points system we come up with will have someone getting burned somewhere. I've won and lost with our points system and personally would like to see our tourney be more in line with the larger events as a lot of the people who fish our events also fish the larger ones . As Jim said we are going to get together probably after the new year and make a few changes based on input from everyone. The main goal being making sure this remains a fun event.

[captjansen]

Personally, it doesn't matter to me what we do, however I feel that the variable point structure has created some interesting tactical decisions that actually add strategy and excitement to the tournament. I don't think a brown was weighed in at all last year, but in previous years when the spring was later, they played a role and it was fun to decide whether to try to catch 2-5 lb browns or 12-15 lb kings. Later in the summer you can decide to try to catch 5-10 lb steelies or 10-15 lb kings. And it makes sense to me that a 20 lb king, 15 lb steelie and 10 lb brown should all roughly equal each other in points. And I tend to agree with lakers only being worth 5 points to discourage guys from targeting them as they are typically easier to catch. However, as we all know, one 3 lb laker can make a big difference at times. As for fish count, it would be nice to weigh in more fish but I agree with keeping the number down so two guys can fish and so teams don't get blown out after one tournament. Weighing six is fine with me because we can still catch 15. My only recommendation would be to make changes to the port championship to increase participation and the pot size. I would like to see us go to a point system for places instead of cumulative pounds as a team was at a huge disadvantage if they didn't fish the big weight tourneys in May and August. Three 10 point victories when the fishing is bad should mean more than one 40 victory when it's good. And the number of boats in any given tournament should matter as well. If you have 15 boats in a tourney, give 15 points to the winner, 14 to second place, etc. The next tourney with 12 boats, give 12 points to the winner, 11 to second, etc. Add up the points as you go along. Keep the idea of dropping two out of seven tourneys for guys who can't fish them all. Whoever has the most points at the end of the season wins. Thanks for running an enjoyable tournament these past few years guys.

Mike

[1mainiac]

Thanks Mike Don and I have to sit down and digest all the input over a beer or 2 likely after the first of the year. I must say I really like the idea of adding position points for each event. As that would go a long way to balance out the bad fishing with the good fishing. I at one time considered just doing total weight of fish for 1st and down the line with 100 points going to 1st and then reducing the points per position. That however was a idea for my Steelhead tournament which is a idea that has never happened yet. Prior to the limit changes on Salmon lots of tournaments used to limit trout as bonus fish or salmon as you could only catch 3 per species and most used a 2 man limit for weigh in. Others used variations of that format. I could check the sheets from last year but you may be right I don't remember anyone weighing a brown last year. We have a lot of ideas to discuss but I know we don't want to stray to far from what we started.

[Far Beyond Driven]

I can't plan on catching fifteen fish every time. But in a weigh six format I can grab the row boat and my girls and stand a good chance of beating the people who can fish a lot more than me. If I need to yank out the four winns and drop a hundred in gas, network, or pre fish to be competitive, what's the point in fishing a club tournament?

The lower numbers to weigh also bring in new boats that are not as intimidated.

[fishsniffer]

I can't plan on catching fifteen fish every time. But in a weigh six format I can grab the row boat and my girls and stand a good chance of beating the people who can fish a lot more than me. If I need to yank out the four winns and drop a hundred in gas, network, or pre fish to be competitive, what's the point in fishing a club tournament?

The lower numbers to weigh also bring in new boats that are not as intimidated.

we had started as a weigh 10 and after a couple events there were boats so far out of the running it wasn't worth coming back for them.i doubt we will increase our weigh amount for the exact reason you stated kevin.we want to get entry level guys involved also.heck theres been plenty of times guys came in without a full weigh in.dont want to add to it..but I do like the point thing that jansen is talking about

[1mainiac]

After reading Mikes comments I considered rather than adding a variable to our points system why not use a different system for the port championship only. What I kinda like best is the 333 championship format where placement in the event sets points not size or quantity of fish a win on a bad weekend is the same as a win on a great weekend. I don't see us going past 50 boats soon so we could do it like this.

Place Points

1st 100

2nd 98

3rd 96

4th 94

5th 92

6th 90

7th 88

8th 86

9th 84

ect ect

This would mean every boat entered gets points based on finish position including last place. Also unless someone wins 4 or 5 events and runs away with it nearly every boat would be in the running all the way to the end. It would also mean you can't just get a couple of huge boxes and take the lead. You have to do well in every event to stay on top. Again just a idea don't shoot LOL

[captjansen]

Jim,

The 333 format or what I believe they use for Nascar, etc. is the idea I was getting at, like you propose. I like the idea of awarding the first place team with the same points as the number of boats in the tourney because a win over 25 boats should mean more than a win over 10 boats. So a tournament with 15 boats gives the winner 15 points, 14 to second and so on. The next tournament may have 20 boats so the winner gets 20, 19 to second and so on. We've been pretty consistent around a dozen boats so unless something drasticly changes, I wouldn't suspect we'll have 10 boats one tournament and even 25 at another. Increments of 1 instead of 2 means a tighter race at the end. You use your best 5 or 6 scores out of 8, dropping 2 or 3 over the course of the year so the guys who can't fish them all can still win it all. If we are going to have a separate entry fee for the port championship, it would make sense for guys to declare if they are going to fish for the port championship in the first tournament of the year they fish so guys don't wait to see how well positioned they are after 2 or 3 tournaments before deciding to enter or not. If you go back to some money from all fees being put into the port championship pot, which I like the idea of after the minimal participation in the port championship last year, of course this is a non-issue. If the entry stays separate, the other idea would be to sweeten the championship pot by getting sponsors to load it up separate from what is already donated for the individual tourneys, or by taking some of the sponsor's donations for each tourney and designating them to the port championship pot so guys are encouraged to enter the port championship because the returns are greater relative to the investment. A traveling trophy would also be fun and encourage those vain fishermen who fish only for the notoriety to enter the port championship. Do we also have a big fish of the year prize? It would be cool to pay out for that as well.

Mike

[1mainiac]

Mike I can't speak for Don we will be getting together soon to hash out some ideas. For me I would think I like the points I proposed because we have had some lower turnout events. While we avg 12 we have had 17 once and 8 a couple of times. I would not want to see a person winning one event for 17 points out doing a person who won a couple of smaller fields. The 333 has a compensator in their scoring that adds points based on size of field I honestly don't see the need to do all the extra math. The one thing that these polls have shown is most are OK with a fee increase of 10 dollars if we agree on that and get 10 boats per event for 7 events that would put 700 in the pot for port championship which would be 350 for 1st 210 for 2nd and 140 for 3rd. Last year we lost a event and still had 68 entries according to my charts so we likely would of had 80 if we had fished the missed event. Plus the 5 I would of fished if my boat had not broke down. I think if we can get a few more boats going the port championship could come close to paying 500 for 1st, 300 for 2nd and 200 for 3rd that would get more people in it as well. We have a lot to consider and this is only my ideas and opinions Don has many of his own so next we sit down and compare notes find where we agree and sort out anything we have to compromise on get it all written down and get everyone to vote on it.

[captjansen]

Sounds good Jim.

[fishsniffer]

We will be meeting this weekend and will have pretty much everything hammered out and let guys know probably Sunday. Ray's mini mart has offered to sponsor big fish for each event and maybe an end of year deal. Just need to finalize that with Jeff in the next week or so. Have a lot of great sponsors coming back next year and were looking forward to getting started