muskiedreams

Jim an I are going over a bunch of things including events, banquet and awards. I am planning on sending out an email to membership soon. Will also post events schedule on our website. Here are some dates. *Next membership meeting Mon March 20th. Will have vote for Outstanding Member of the Year. Discuss and vote on going to team format for tourneys. Other important topics. *Banquet Sat March 25th, at Keenans, details to come *Otisco Tiger Tournament Sat May 20th *Chautauqua Tournament Sat June 10th *Waneta Fall Tournamet Sat Nov 4th Chapter 69 is still growing. We are now at over 70 members including family members and youth memberships.

It would be nice to get more opinions on a 3 largest fish rule from anglers who consistently catch > 3 as well as those who are new and/or have limited time to spend on the water and/or resources limiting their success. There should be a certain amount of advantage for those who spend more time on the water but also a real possibility of a rookie winning a prize and gaining valuable experience and incentive to continue in the sport.

If we limited entries to legal size fish, there would be a huge possibility in some tournaments that there would not be enough team results that qualify for three prize places. With going to the team format it is more likely than it would have been with the individual format. The size limits set by the state was for the purpose of limiting the number of fish that are kept, especially by meat hunters and incidental catches. It wasn't and couldn't be intended to limit catch sizes and prohibit photos. With that said, this is were efforts of MI and other musky fishing organizations to educate the public on proper C&R and the importance of it. We still must try to make sure that we don't cause mortality in our tournaments through stressing education of and the importance of good CPR practices. I think it might be worthwhile discussing the possibility of raising the minimum size to qualify for particular waters depending on looking at statistics from past tournament and maybe non-tournament catches. For instance, raising the limit on Chautauqua to 34, 35 or 36 inches but still using the points schedule for each size. Maybe we could also consider giving 1 or 2 points for fish caught and released that are under the minimum size to enter, requiring only an in water picture (minimum) to qualify and in water or out of water measurement or guesstimate optional. This might help for occasional tournaments where the fish just have lock jaw and only one boat gets qualifying fish but others get dinks. The Lunge Log could be a valuable tool for the purpose or determining catch size ranges and trends per body of water if we could get all members to log in all their fish with quick in water measurement being acceptable. Maybe there could be an incentive such as each Lunge Log entry qualifying for an entry into a monthly drawing for a prize. We could also try to find and review past tourney records and maybe tourney records from other chapters and clubs as well as keeping an accurate log to help determine any appropriate changes to minimum entry size for a body of water. If any of you are familiar with the C&R data that the NMA keeps you know how valuable it is. Especially because of the awesome work that Tony Schime puts into formatting and analyzing the data. They do try to encourage members to log in their catches but Many members don't constantly log their catches and they don't have a diary format which can be much more helpful to determine catch rates as well as catch rates for a particular size range. The NYS diary studies are great for that.

If you limit the number of fish per team, I don't see how it can be controlled. I don't think you could make a team quit or somehow not let them enter any other fish once they have caught the limit. If you limit to three and they catch more, they can easily just report the three longest unless you have a reliable real time method of tracking all catches. If it is just limited to three and they can just report the three largest, it will have no affect on leveling the playing field. I believe that in trout and salmon tournaments that limit to three fish use impartial monitors on each boat to record the catches and enforce the rule. The points system was designed to help level the field between seasoned and less experienced anglers as much as possible. A 38" fish earns the same number of points as three 30" fish (12 pts). A 44" fish earns the same as two 36" fish (18 pts). And the team system helps a little more by insuring that one boat cannot take more than one place, although if they are entered in the big fish pool they could get that as well as 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. With a format of prizes based on single fish length, there is a much better chance that one boat can take two or more prizes. Although there is still a chance that a newbie could take one of the top prizes. With the team format, if we have a big fish pool, it should be required that all or none of the anglers on a boat can be entered in the big fish. IMO, the points system along with team format levels the field as much as possible and along with other measures, reduces the possibility of cheating or gaming the system as much as possible.

Welcome Kaptag. Yes, quite a few of our MI Chapter 69 members use this board as well as a huge number of anglers throughout the state. We have our meetings every other month on the third Monday at 7PM at the Henrietta Moose Lodge The next meeting is March 20th. We have members scattered throughout the state. Some are even near you. We have a tournament on Otisco Lake in May for tiger muskies which is the closest event to you.

CV Bass League is in Pennsylvania. It is called a League. Is it something like a bowling league? Or is it a club. Also, I wonder if it only applies to out of state groups.

This may be due to complaints of rigs being parked on the edge of the road from residents. On bass opener, which is also formerly musky opener up until last year, I have heard that they can be parked up to and beyond Waneta Lake Road on both sides on opening weekend. The Lake Association has a lot of clout in Albany through the county legislature chairman whom some of you may know. He was also instrumental in pushing for the gas storage facility at Seneca Lake. Also, some of the residents really don't like the idea of there being public access on the lakes. Some of them think the lakes should be for residents only. It would be nice if they could expand the public launch area to include more parking but it might be easier said than done. I will try to find out more info about this from locals and maybe from region 8 contacts.

I googled it and came up with nothing. Maybe it is a club limit because of limited parking at the launch.

How about a tournament where it is limited to Lamoka in the AM and both lakes in the PM?