I have recently received a phone call with an idea from one of our guys that fishes the circuit. The thought is to change our format from a team tournament to a Pro/Am circuit next year. I am looking for ideas and suggestions on how this would work and if it would be a popular change. We NEED to grow our circuit next year and this may be a great idea to do it. Thoughts would be having 3 qualifiers in Iowa and maybe one in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin. The pros paying a $200 entry fee and the AMs paying a $100 entry fee. The pros entry would go into the Pro payout and the Am entry would go into the AM payout. The Pro would provide everything for the amateur the day of the tournament. The combined weight of the 2 would go to the Pro and to the AM. We would have an invitational Championship inviting the top 100 teams. You would have to fish at least 1 qualifier to get an invitation. Of course the more qualifiers that you fish, the bigger the chance you would have of making the championship. The Pros would get an invitation and the Amateurs would get an invitation. Of course if you get an amateur to sign up for a qualifier you would automatically be qualified for that qualifier. We would have a rules meeting the evening before the qualifier and that is when you would be paired with your partner. There are alot of people out there that do not have a tournament quality boat and would love to fish these tournaments. There is also alot of the teams that fish this circuit that each partner has a boat. The entry fee would be a little more for the Pro side than what you are currently paying now as you are splitting the entry. However when you cash a check, you would not be splitting that with a partner. From a amateur stand point, if you don’t have a boat, or would just like to try a tournament, or if you want to find out how to fish a particular body of water and don’t want to pay a guide $300 for the day….. you can pay the $100 amateur entry fee and fish the body of water with a pro and maybe even cash a check. Thoughts are that from the $200 Pro entry fee, have $20 go to the championship fund and $10 from the AM entry fee. The invitational championship would also require the $200 and $100 entry fee. After crunching some numbers this may be an awesome way of getting some new blood in the circuit and make it a new challenge for the old timers. For you family teams, one of you fish as a Pro and the other as an amateur, the AM may learn something from the new PRO they just fished with and share that information down the road with their family member. Also the PRO/AM would also reduce the possiblities of cheating as the PRO would likely not know the amateur and wouldn’t consider any cheating as they would not know if they would be told on. Please give me your thoughts and ideas on this. I would appreciate it if you posted all thoughts so that all can read and generate more ideas. My initial thoughts are that this could make for some huge tournaments as well as opportunites to fish a tourney in Minnesoata and Wisconsin in the months that we cannot have them in Iowa. Please take the time to think this out and post your ideas!!!!
_________________
Dean Higgins
Executive Director
Walleye Promotions, LLC
P.O. Box 214
Belmond, IA 50421
515-571-9687
June 16, 2006 at 11:48 am
#1250528