Post by AlabamaFishingBuddy on Sept 19, 2012 12:41:13 GMT -5
Nomad and I have been collectively banging our heads together trying to figure out how to increase participation in the AFB Trail for next season. We both think that it will help considerably if we lower costs and open these tournaments up to anyone who wants to fish instead of concentrating on a club type trail. Of course, we still hope to have a good group of core guys and keep it friendly and fun.
Here is a basic description of what we are looking at for next season. Please let me know if this is something you would like to participate in and help us get the word out.
1. 11 regular season tournaments February-December with a Classic event in January. All tournaments will be on the Coosa chain. We will fish every lake on the Coosa River twice with the exception of one lake which will only be visited once. The Classic lake will be drawn at the time of weigh-in for the final regular season event.
2. Entry fees will be reduced to $35 + $10 big fish with $25 going to payout for the day, $7 going to Classic pot and $3 going to angler of the year from each entry.
3. Instead of the current cumulative weight program we will be going to a points system.
4. There will be NO MEMBERSHIP FEE and Classic qualifiers will have NO ENTRY FEE FOR THE CLASSIC.
5. In order to qualify for the Classic you must either fish 8 regular season events to automatically qualify or fish a minimum of 4 regular season events and be top 12 in the points, win a regular season event or have big fish of the season.
Under this plan, based on 10 boats per event, payout would be $250 at each tournament, Classic pot would be $770 and Angler of the Year award would be $330. With the lower entry fees and no membership fee we both believe we could get more than 10 at most events and that would drastically increase those payouts.
There will also be much more marketing done for the trail next season with flyers being distributed and through word of mouth to try to increase attendance.
This will not work without you guys letting us know if there are other ways to improve and most importantly showing up to fish some or all of the tournaments so please let me know what you think. We are still in the brainstorming phase and there might be some minor tweaks to this plan but for the most part I think we are on the right track with these changes.
Here is a basic description of what we are looking at for next season. Please let me know if this is something you would like to participate in and help us get the word out.
1. 11 regular season tournaments February-December with a Classic event in January. All tournaments will be on the Coosa chain. We will fish every lake on the Coosa River twice with the exception of one lake which will only be visited once. The Classic lake will be drawn at the time of weigh-in for the final regular season event.
2. Entry fees will be reduced to $35 + $10 big fish with $25 going to payout for the day, $7 going to Classic pot and $3 going to angler of the year from each entry.
3. Instead of the current cumulative weight program we will be going to a points system.
4. There will be NO MEMBERSHIP FEE and Classic qualifiers will have NO ENTRY FEE FOR THE CLASSIC.
5. In order to qualify for the Classic you must either fish 8 regular season events to automatically qualify or fish a minimum of 4 regular season events and be top 12 in the points, win a regular season event or have big fish of the season.
Under this plan, based on 10 boats per event, payout would be $250 at each tournament, Classic pot would be $770 and Angler of the Year award would be $330. With the lower entry fees and no membership fee we both believe we could get more than 10 at most events and that would drastically increase those payouts.
There will also be much more marketing done for the trail next season with flyers being distributed and through word of mouth to try to increase attendance.
This will not work without you guys letting us know if there are other ways to improve and most importantly showing up to fish some or all of the tournaments so please let me know what you think. We are still in the brainstorming phase and there might be some minor tweaks to this plan but for the most part I think we are on the right track with these changes.