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| Dale and I talked yesterday and we both have heard from many teams and walleye fishermen who have expressed interest in forming a upper Miss (walleye)tournament club since most of the Major Walleye series have left the Mississippi this year or existing ones have substantially increased their entries. General format could be $150-200 per team,100% payback, pools 3-10. Four-five-six 2-day weekend tourneys. Run by the members. Tourney directors are drawn each tourney and that team will do the weigh-ins and inspections. There will be many of us around that will help out so don't avoid the series just because you might have to do the Director job. Looking for imput and interest. Either post your questions or interest here or email me at [email protected]. Thinking pools 9-10,7-8,6 and 5a,5-4,4-3 being the five different venues. Probably one a month starting in either March or April. Lawrence Ecklor
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Member
Posts: 240
Location: La Crescent, MN | Running a tournament is not my idea of a good time. There is already an excellent, established circuit called the W.A.T. in all the same venues that you mentioned. If we, as competitive fishermen, want to have a good, strong, competitive walleye circuit OUTSIDE of Pool Four (yes there are walleyes in other pools of the river) then we need to get behind the people who have invested the time and the resources to make it happen from the beginning. If you are not drawing people from Iowa then you are weakening the competition big-time. Additionally, there are club tournaments all over the place every week all up and down the river. You could literally fish a tournament every weekend on Pools 4-15 and call that a circuit if you really wanted to. Grumpy Old Men, Port of Call, Catfish Days in Trempealeau, so on and so forth.
Personally I'd like to see another headliner tournament in LaCrosse or Winona, maybe partnered with a festival, much in the same way SteamBoat Days used to be or along the same lines as Catfish Days. I would think a club could be formed to raise awareness of the issues surrounding habitat and walleyes on the UMR and a large yearly tournament would be a great way to showcase the issues and raise cash for habitat enhancement/protection/rehab. |
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| PROPOSED DATES:
APRIL 10-11 POOLS 7-8 CLINTON STREET
MAY 8-9 6-5A FOUNTAIN CITY
JUNE 12-13 5-4 WABASHA
AUG 14-15 4-3 EVERRET'S????
SEPT 4-5 9-10 BLACKHAWK PARK
Edited by Mountain Man 1/15/2004 11:33 AM
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| Zach as I mentioned in the e-mail to you, the goal here is to give us more walleye tourneys to fish in our area. Nobody is doing this to hurt WAT , I was planning on fishing a few Wat's myself. I sure would agree if we could get more events attached to celebrations it solves the desire for more tourneys and then the details of a club aren't so important. Catfish, LPO, Fountian city, Stoddard/Bergan are all great. Unfortunately I've been waiting for what you are suggesting to happen for 10 years and it hasn't gotten very far. Lawrence |
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Member
Posts: 240
Location: La Crescent, MN | Maybe with a little help and input from the anglers the WAT would be interested in running north/south divisions of the WAT with the Top X anglers from each division fishing a championship? Of course you could fish one or both divisions. Yes, more options would be nice to a point. My desire would be to work with what is out there already to make it stronger or better. All I'm saying is look at, and investigate, all the options.
Zach |
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Member
Posts: 1188
Location: Chicago IL. | I for one dont mind the higher entry fees for the WAT. Zach that is a great idea about the 2 divisions,kinda cool.The higher payouts make the 5hr+ road trips worth it for me. I know that there was alot of grumbling about the higher fees from alot of people from last years trail entries,but what other trail sends that many entries to the Cabelas NTC. Its a good solid run trail with good people running it that CARE about the people that fish it.I for one dont want to make a trip to a tourney to weigh fish for the tourney.If you look at all the walleye/sauger tourneys on the IL river in march and april,you will see why the river is beat up so bad.I have seen a steady decline of sauger population from pressure in the last 5 years. Yes I understand the dnr will tell you that it is strong,but it is the almighty dollar that has the last say.I`m not knocking the very tourneys I fish on the IL river,but I do think it needs more control. There is aprox 2000 tournament people fishing 15 miles of river in March.Lawrence,I fished 18 tourneys last year,up and down the IL and the Miss. There is alot of places to go and get into a tourney on just about any weekend you want. I`m not knocking your idea about starting a new club/ trail, just not to happy nobody wants to take control. Please dont shoot me ,it`s just my opinon. John Mannerino |
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Member
Posts: 526
Location: blue mounds,wisc | i agree with ZACK and JOHN. we should all help promote an allready excisting tournament trail like the WAT. this would draw more intrest into this trail and get more boats into each tournament.this would increase compatition and paybacks. a north and south division is different,i think that the WAT could maybe go to a six or eight tournments. from pools 3-13. then have a championship with the top fifty boats.this way the fishermen can concentrate on fishing and not have to worry about weighing fish and looking in livewells.
my opinion, not bashing your ideas LAWRENCE |
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| No problem on the bashing side , this was posted for suggestions and questions and that's exactly what you're all giving. Regarding the sharing tourney directors job that has been objected, too....The idea is that pays back 100% rather than a smaller percentage, but it isn't cast in stone since all people are doing here is getting some feedback. It's not my series , it's a club idea so I personally don't care how the final format ends up. There is already another group of folks discussing getting another club together that aren't WAT tourney guys that might already fill in the need for more walleye tourneys on the Miss. |
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