captjansen

Jim,

Looking at the dates, May 25th is a Sunday. Are we fishing Sunday on Memorial Day weekend?

How will a tie in points in the port championship be determined? Most wins, etc.?

Sounds good Jim.

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

The big Muskegon tourney is the weekend of July 12th. Can you move that tournament to the 17th? How about a September weekend? One that works around the big fish tourney out of GH and Labor Day weekend? I'd rather jack tunas off the clipper in September than drag for greasers on the bottom off of Saugatuck in June. July 5th would be good for pre-fishing the Muskegon tourney, although Lula will have to go it alone as I'll be deck-loading 'eyes on the Bay that weekend. If you go to 8 tourneys, consider keeping only 5 for the port championship, instead of 6 or more.

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

That reminds me of the 40' sailboat that tacked through the channel while a few dozen of us tried to fish it one Saturday morning about 15 years ago. Talk about a clusto...

I'd fish Holland right now. The guys who ran north in the tourney this weekend died. Most of the big boxes were caught from Holland to Saugatuck this weekend. I took a buddy dying of cancer out this morning and we boated our 10 kings between 6:15 and 7:45 a few miles north of Holland to straight out front. Two over 20, 2 over 15 and 6 6-8 pounders. 60 to the bottom in 85-100 fow. Flounder pounder was rocking and anything silver with green and chartreuse on it. Don't bore them...they want it at least 2.7 sog, and a bit faster would be even better.

Some good fish should be showing up off of White Lake as the fishing was great south of there this past weekend and has slowed down the last few days. I'd target 100 to 180 and fish above 60 for coho and smaller kings and from 70 to bottom for the tunas. Big Weenie paddles and flies have been rocking for the dukes down deep. Spoons with some chartreuse and perhaps some uv on it have produced the best for the higher fish.

Water's cold but most of the fish are still out deeper the last I heard. We did best in 120 to 220 on Sunday AM. Steelhead were feeding on inch long alewives so the two colors were rocking and the kings were coming 40 to 90 down. Paddles and flies did the most damage from 70 to 90 down.

The fishing is great right now out of Muskegon. We averaged 7 fish an hour last Friday afternoon. Kings down deep on paddles and flies, everything else on top. The kings ran from 10-17 pounds. We had all 5 species. 180 fow was the best.