Great Lakes Walleye or Salmon Tournaments

[PolymerKnot]

Good Afternoon,

I plan to start fishing walleye and salmon tournaments out of Saginaw Bay and Frankfort/Manistee using our company sponsored boat. Our company has nothing to do with fishing, just the ownership likes to fish.

My question is about Pro vs Amateur. How is this defined?

I'm not a charter captian, i have never been a second mate.

Now our boat is company owned (owner of company i work for) and most equipment is also paid for by the company. Not all as i have a lot of my own walleye fishing gear but the salmon gear was all bought by the company.

Does financial backing have anything to do with Pro vs Amateur definition? If we put the name of our Plastics company on the side of the boat or in the name, does that make a difference?

Thank you for the feedback. I just want to make sure i follow all rules and cause no issues. In my opinion, I am an amateur as it relates to fishing the great lakes, but that is my view.

Justin

[gmfishon]

you can fish either div. most tournaments will say the charters fish the pro division and anybody that wants to can also. the pro has higher payouts and higher entry fee. in some tournaments the pro division has observers so if you want to fish pro you may need a member of your team willing to not fish and go ride around on someone elses boat. the only thing this does for your team is that member may learn some stuff. sometimes the tournaments will have a few observers lined up but you cant count on it. good luck!

[PolymerKnot]

Thank you for the response, which makes a lot of sense to me.

What if i decided to get my Captains license but I do not have a charter business?

[ekbelt]

Most tournaments state 'licensed charter captain' onboard. I don't think it matters who owns the boat. Some even qualify it to licensed within the last 5 years.