Sarah Chilson

And thanks for the kind words about the Derby. Dave does an excellent job, he is really passionate about LOC and certainly wants to make it as good as he can for you all. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

We also have the daily cash awards to think about. If we didn't have the rule about day of weigh ins it would be impossible to manage that fairly and properly. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

I understand what you are saying and I also understand the struggle of having a job with regular business hours, it would be tough to compete on days you don't have off. I would encourage you to keep an eye on the weather and hopefully you can come out on the weekend! We organize three derbies each year so we do our best to have a number of dates that people can plan around work schedules and hopefully participate in, if they are interested. We try to publish the events dates as early as possible and have actually already selected the 2017 dates: May 5th-14th, June 30th-July 30th and August 18th-September 4th. I hope that helps you a little! I know that those who really want to cheat will probably attempt it, but our job as the organizers is to make it as hard as possible for them to succeed. That is why we have rules and regulations. It is why we require at least one registered witness. It is why we take statements and give polygraphs when necessary. 99.9% of participants are doing the right things, playing fair and having fun. We want to protect those people because they deserve an even playing field and those are the people we want competing. We hate to disqualify participants for breaking the rules (knowingly or unknowingly) but we do it every derby in order to keep things as fair as possible. I know not everyone will agree with every rule we have, but Dave has been working on derbies and tournaments for decades and has seen what works and what doesn't work and has a great sense of what is required to keep things fair and running smoothly. I hope your schedule will allow you to participate this year and congratulations on your new boat...that is always exciting! Sarah

Yes, as long as you are registered for the derby prior to catching the fish at 2am. It protects the integrity of the derby and everyone that has registered prior to fishing. If we did not require same day weigh ins and registration prior to 7am on the day you want to start fishing, some might attempt to cheat by catching a fish at 8:30pm one night, registering for the derby after the fact, and then submitting a fish they caught while not actually entered into the derby. This protects us and it protects those that have qualifying catches. I am not saying that is what everyone would do, but post-catch entries are an issue some other events have had and we want to avoid that problem.

Here is a link to the official rules and regulations: http://loc.org/RULES_AND_REGULATIONS.html Number 10 addresses weigh station hours of operation for the Fall Derby. The fish must be entered and weighed on the day it was caught (Rule #1!). It requires planning on the part of our participants to make sure you give yourself time to get in to a participating weigh station to ensure a qualifying weigh in. Here is the list of participating weigh stations: http://loc.org/Weigh_In_Stations.html. This is also a good opportunity to remind participants of a couple things.....everyone needs to be fishing with at least one other person who is also registered for LOC. If you are on a boat, everyone on the boat must be registered. This promotes safe fishing practices and results in at least one witness for verification purposes. And please, don't eat your fish if you place... (Rules 11, 16 & 17)! Hang on to it. Let me know if you have any additional questions! Sarah

Hi Captain Larry, I would like to help out with a donation from LOC Derby. Would a season pass for 2017 be something you could use for a raffle to raise some funds? Or as part of a prize package? Feel free to have someone contact me at [email protected]. Thanks! Sarah

Good luck everyone! Hope to see some veterans on the LOC Leaderboard!!! Thank you for your service and have a great day tomorrow!

To clarify....the leaderboard is updated in REAL TIME. Apologies for writing "each evening." I misspoke/mistyped and just got an irate call from my boss about it...sorry for the confusion. Hope you are all enjoying the derby!

For anyone following the action, the LOC Summer Derby leaderboard can be found on our website at: http://loc.org/uploads/16Summerlb.pdf It is updated each evening. For photos and other info you can check out our facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/LOCderby/