FYB/Saugerama Fisherman

For those of you that have and are planning to fish either the FYB and/or the Saugerama I have a question for you. I have the chance to have both tournaments as a qualifier to the Cabelas National Team Championship (NTC). If we have enough interest and teams sign up for it each tournament will be awarded AT LEAST 1 PAID team entry for the NTC. There are other things to go with it including travel money, team jerseys, plaques, cabelas gift cards and more.

With that said, the normal tournament fee will still apply to all teams. If you wish to be able to compete for the PAID NTC spot there is a $50 charge for each tournament, of which 100% of that gets paid back. Along with the $50 entry per team for each tournament there is a one time $40 membership fee (per person) for The Walleye Federation (TWF). If you are already a TWF member or a MWC member you do not need to pay those fees. So if you aren’t a member and would like a chance to qualify for a NTC it would be $140 per team for the first one and $50 for each tournament after that.
Before I go through with setting up each tournament as a qualifier I would like to get peoples opinion on whether they would pay the fees or not. Please choose a honest answer as these results will decide whether or not they will be NTC qualifiers.

Any questions please feel free to ask and I will do the best I can to answer them.

More info can also be found HERE

Feel free to posts comments, questions, and concerns also. I wouldn’t mind a reply to this post stating that you would be interested in it either. Again, Im just trying to get an idea if I could get enough teams signed up to make it worth it!!

Thanks again,

Roughly how many teams do you need to get signed up for each NTC spot?

In order to get one spot for sure you must have 10 teams signed up. The more teams you have from there, the more the extras increase (travel money, gift cards, etc) and the more invites you can get. The minimum is 10 boats/teams for each tournament.

That’s about what I expected. I’d strongly consider it.

You stated that the $50 extra would get paid back 100%. How would you divide up the extra money paid by those hoping to qualify if one or more teams placing in the money paid the lower fees?
Perhaps that gets paid back in another manner?

I voted no as I have no aspirations to fish in larger tourneys but that won’t keep me from participating provided I can still pay the lower fees for FYB and Saugerama. And yes, one year I did place in the FYB! Got a few bucks back.

Eric

If im understanding your question right this is the answer.

Basically there is 2 tournaments you pay for but you only have to fish one. There would be the regular entry fee for all those that fished. The $60 normal entry fee (or whatever it was last year) would get paid back to the top 7 or so spots just like normal. All that would stay the same. As a side pot/ side tourney you would pay the $50 directly to TWF and they handle the paying back 100%. When I say paying back 100% its not in the form of cash or a check its in the form of a paid NTC spot, travel funds, etc. That money only gets “paid back” to those who entered that portion and paid the extra $50.

You can still only pay the original $60 entry fee just like every other year and have the same pay back. You wont be required to enter into the side pot for the extra $50.

It would be similar to a big fish pot. It is an optional pot you can choose to get into buy paying $5 or $10. For all those that choose to enter that they have a chance of winning that money back by catching the biggest fish. Same thing with the NTC invite, your choosing to enter it and pay the extra $50 for a chance of winning the invite and other prizes if you have the biggest weight out of the teams that entered that optional pot.

Does that clear it up at all?

If it gets me my Ten Pound Walleye He@@ Yes!

If I understand it correctly, if there is enough interest you can have side pots that will increase the number of entries (non paid I believe) as well.

I think i understand what your asking. For instance, if we get 10 teams that enter the side pot there is one paid spot given out. If we have 30 teams sign up there is 2 paid spots given out. There is other extra items that increase depending on # of boats also!

Quote:

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… As a side pot/ side tourney you would pay the $50 directly to TWF and they handle the paying back 100%. When I say paying back 100% its not in the form of cash or a check its in the form of a paid NTC spot, travel funds, etc. That money only gets “paid back” to those who entered that portion and paid the extra $50.

You can still only pay the original $60 entry fee just like every other year and have the same pay back. You wont be required to enter into the side pot for the extra $50.

It would be similar to a big fish pot. It is an optional pot you can choose to get into buy paying $5 or $10. For all those that choose to enter that they have a chance of winning that money back by catching the biggest fish. Same thing with the NTC invite, your choosing to enter it and pay the extra $50 for a chance of winning the invite and other prizes if you have the biggest weight out of the teams that entered that optional pot.

Does that clear it up at all?

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Thanks for making the post. I don’t fish your tournaments, but I run some and we’re faced with the same NTC qualifying rules.

I scratch my head, and sorry to say I’m not sure if there will be much interest in the process. I know we don’t have enough interest to meet the minimum 12 TWF members to be granted a NTC invite.

I have a really hard time turning over payment for the side pot to an outside party. Hard enough giving away the contestants contact data to another party, harder to let go of financial responsibility, has always been hard that our anglers only have interest in the NTC 1 out of 3 years when the tournament is in our region of the country. I got trumped with so many of our TWF members being pulled away from our TWF Club when the MWC collected the membership ahead of us.

Now I can get those members chased back into our TWF club by contacting them and TWF, I’m not sure the additional time investment is worth it.

We have a bonus payout already – $50 optional to the anglers if they want to enter that portion of the payout – but it doesn’t have a $40 membership fee that’s paid back $0.00.

I have one person that’s interested in an NTC invite, but I need 12 to get one. So we won’t be sending anyone.

The NTC to me was a large field of anglers, from all over the US, that got together for one tournament a year. We would pay the entry fee for our season points champion to fish it, so it was entry fee paid for one of our contestants. Now, I’m afraid it’s going to become a tournament with very few teams, and loose it’s luster. Once it’s dies off, it will be hard to bring back. I don’t see very many teams signing up – but I’ll hope I’m wrong.

I was told there were @100 teams that had qualified through side pots “already”. Well, there are basically no more tournaments until the NTC – so the “already” imo is that’s all there is to “invite”. If 50% of those invited make the trip, that’s a 50 boat tournament. I fear most of those 50 boats will be disappointed in the field size and rewards available for such a small field. How long is a sponsor going to give out a boat for a 50 team tournament?

Lots of questions with the NTC Qualifying changes, but it looks like we’re not going to be a part of it any longer. If our contestants want to sign up for TWF – I hold our club open so they can do that by paying the membership fee. If we get 12 signed up, I’ll run a side pot – at this time, the only member we have left in our TWF club is me. (To hold TWF club open we have to have at least one member, so I pull money out of my pocket to keep an active TWF “club”. Feels like I’m taking $40 out of my pocket and throwing it in the trash.) Interest has gone away from the NTC completely.

I can see your point on a lot of things. With that said, We already have an established TWF club with enough members. These 2 tournaments would be strictly side pot tournaments. All we need for each of these 2 tournaments is 10 teams each to side up for the side pot and we get a paid spot. In other words Im not creating a new club for these tournaments, just running them as a side pot to an already existing club.

I will say that I’d be much more likely to pay it for Saugerama, because I should know where the next years tournament is being held. With limited tournament travel time allotted to me these days (kids), I need to make sure I don’t blow it all on a tournament 15 hours away.

I’m thinking of coming down to fish the FYB for the first time this year, is there a website with info or is it just shared on here?

No website, just the info that is on here from years past.