the other thing is, we're not the only web site around, I'm sure nothing is stopping other sites from fielding a team if they wanted to, so I'd say it's fair

I would say we have about 30 registered for the Tourney. So some more and some less than other teams.

Team S-B's advantages could be:

• We have a good collection of anglers competing
• We are benefiting from the "shore bass" ratio
• We are benefiting from having anglers all over though the fish have come from 3 predominant regions this year: RI shore, Ditch, Mass North Shore (we also don't place in any location specific categories because of this)

Advantages Team S-B is not having:

• No boat "Ringers"
• No Commercial Boat Pros
• No Large registrations

Other groups well represented by Shore guys:

Team Jersey Shore 497.36
all 10 from Shore

Martha's Vineyard Surfcasters 466.88
9 of 10 fish from shore

RISAA 357.58
4 of 10 from shore

Jersey Shore Surfcasters 348.47
9 of 10 fish from shore

"Fair" will certainly be a moving target in this competition. Last year the boat guys, especially heavy commercial boat guys, dominated this tourney. So last year the fairness was questioned by the disadvantage to the shore guys and the non commercial guys. Changes were made for the points ratio (I wouldn't be surprised if some boat guys are complaining hard about that this year). This year, Jersey fielded two good teams with mostly surfcasters and those results speak too. The time range of the Tourney seems to favor the boat guys too.

If the scoring was normalized by the amount of members, where else should it be normalized? Boat -v- Shore was done (and could be further tweaked), Rec -v- Comm?

I think every year there will be factors that contribute to how well a team does or not and those factors will change yearly too. This year the Jersey guys had a ton of pogies. Did that stop fish that should have gone from the Chesapeake to the Cape? what other facotrs could change the balance next year? No pogies in RI but all in Buzzards Bay or off the Islands? All in Boston Harbor?

[QUOTE=Steve K;518479]I guess it might depend on when in the week he caught it. ;)

I'll have to check the rules. I know that the MV Derby has a rule that a fish must be weighed and entered within 12 hours of the time it's caught. Dunno whether OTW has a similar rule. :huh:

And I still haven't weighed a decent fish in for team s-b.com, sorry guys.. :(

me neither johnny....but Im trying like hell...and hope to soon...:lasso:

I wish I could help with the points, But I am just to lazy to go and fish:gu:

We had a pretty big team also..Yet some of the guys who I fish with did not enter.
That does not matter if u ask me.
Nice fish Luds..U did the right thing an it paid off for ya..
I'm happy to see it..

I think the only thing they may do is change the conversion rate on surf fish to 1.2. As far as limiting the size of a team, I don't feel that will happen as it discourages participation and entry fees.
With regard to who has the advantage, its only the second year of the tourney and while s-b is primarily surf fishermen and a number of guys have had a good year, that doesn’t mean next year will be the same. We could suck wind next year because that’s how surf fishing is.
I think the tourney is pretty fairly set up overall, and OTW will make changes as needed to keep things equitable for both sides. (boat and surf)
Disclaimer: I am not an OTW employee, just another squid with a point of view.

Real nice job guys. Some very nice numbers there.

i agree with all of the above

[QUOTE=Mike P;518535][QUOTE=Steve K;518479]

I guess it might depend on when in the week he caught it. ;)

QUOTE]

Exactly

[QUOTE=Steve K;518783][QUOTE=Mike P;518535]I re-read the rules twice, and I see nothing there that would make it illegal to weigh a fish in a day or two after it was caught--as long as it was caught in accordance with state regs on bag limits :huh:

Angler’s are allowed to enter and weigh only one (1) fish per week

I know. Steve and I were wondering about whether it would be Kosher for someone to say, catch two nice fish on a Saturday, enter one, and then enter the second the following Monday at the start of a new week ;)

I don't see anything that specifically says you can't :confused: :huh:

Rhode Island Mobile Sportsfishermen has a team in the tourney and their membership is capped at 600 members. Whats to stop all the membership from going out and giving it hell :buds:

Thats true Mike, it says "enter" nothing about when it was caught!

Sounds like the "Barry Bonds" defense

I'm a shore fisherman and have to say that the balance has shifted too far to the shore fisherman this year. The boat fisherman had an advantage last year, but this year now the shore fisherman do. 1.3 is too high a number and unrealistic for boat fisherman. I agree with the 1.2 or even 1.15. A 52# average is not realistic. I'd like to see a cap of 25 per team, that way the playing field is leveled and there is nothing that can be done about the range, i.e. having members from New Jersey to Maine.

Another great thought would be to have a shore striper cup and a boat striper cup and get rid of the conversion ratio all together. The MV Derby has created two seperate events for just this reason. It is too hard to get the shore and boat fisherman to get along or to agree on anything. A 52# bass from the shore is a great fish, but not unlikely. For a boat fisherman to catch a 67.6# bass is HIGHLY unlikely. How has the playing field been leveled or fair?

They DEFINITELY have to work out how the weigh slips are handled. If a tackle shop wants to be a weigh station it must be mandatory that they have a fax machine. Go spend the $100 or less, buy a fax machine and fax those weigh slips at the end of each day. If a weigh slip is not faxed within 24 hours that fish is disqualified and that weigh station is no longer able to be a weigh station. It is absurd that these weigh stations are holding their slips for over a week and discarding a weigh slip if a guy caught a bigger fish that week. It is happening. 24 hour time limit and the time and date need to be on the weigh slip.

It is also crazy that you can ONLY fish from boat or shore. I love to fish with my friends from their boats. If I catch a big fish from the boat I can do nothing with it. Ooo, I can get a pounder pin, but I can't contribute to my team. They say it discourages cheating, but wouldn't this encouraging cheating even more?

It is only the second year of this tournament so they still have some bugs to be worked out, these are some of them. I like this tournament, it gives me motivation, especially in late July and August and I like the competitive nature in it.

i dont agree with 25 man per team cap.there are clubs with hundreds of members.a 52lb from the surf is rare. correct me if iam wrong but theres only 1 surf 50lber while thers quite a few boat 50,s

Go Trolls !!!!

Why should you limit who participates?.. After all it's called fishing and not catching.. I should know.. you guys need any bluefish?

i think livinit makes some very good points.

My feelings:

1) I think the shore conversion should be bumped down to 1.2
2) I think that shops should have to fax in slips daily
3) I think that OTW should stay on top of their site and update daily
4) You should be allowed to fish from boat or shore for the club tourney.
5) I think you should have to weigh in a fish within 12 hrs of catching it.

To limit to 25 people completely defeats the purpose of it being a 'club' event. Most clubs have more than 25 members.

Overall, though, i do love this tourney....

btw, we would still be in the lead if the factor was 1.2

I think it's time for 2 divisions, shore and boat. Look at the way most of the teams are built. Either shore or boat. It would be tough for OTW from a prize and sponsorship perspective, but in a lot of other ways it makes sense.

Saw some more Team Striper monsters weighed in at the shop today, so it's not over yet, but that s-b.com points total and average adjusted fish weight average is fairly daunting at this point.

Fairly Daunting??

25 is an arbritary number, make it 30 or whatever, but there should be a cap. How does having a team like S-B.com who has 100's of members along the entire east coast fair to local teams who do not have the opportunity internet based teams have? One and only way to level it is to put a cap. Have S-B.com have several teams if they have so many members. Have a S-B.com Team 1, Team 2, etc. and possibly start a calcutta between the several S-B.com teams as a side competition. Putting a cap is not limiting participants . . . you can still fish the tournament as an angler. Putting a cap will create more teams, more participants.

I disagree with a cap. It’s a fun tournament with good competition. As far as the teams go, it’s a trophy only prize. If there were substantial dollar value prizes for the teams, I would agree with you. S-B has a lot of users, but based primarily out of Mass/RI. That's where all of our landings come from, and they are all shore fish.
Technically, you are an S-B member seeing as you posted here, but the core team is really only the 25-30 guys that signed up. As I've said already, lower the ratio on the surf caught fish to 1.15 or 1.2 and the field will be pretty level, IMO.

I agree that the factor is too high. 1.2 or 1.15 seam about right to me. Separating things completely into boat and surf would just split things up and take something away from it IMO.

If we do win, do we all get to take the cup for a day and parade it around our towns like the stanley cup? :hihi:

When the rules first came out for this year I said 1.3 was too much. I feel 1.1 is more than enough and I fish from shore.

I disagree with a cap.

If the rules could be more clear and could do away with possible cheating, that would be a plus.

The tournament ends way too early in the year in my opinion and many others. I guess they want me to sign up still as I got an application in the mail yesterday.

It's just a trophy. They're trying to re-create the spirit of the Schaeffer Cup. The club thing is supposed to be about friendly competition. A club with 100 members of every skill level, or a club with 15 cherry picked high-liners, all of whom are full-time comms in season, and fish 5-6 nights out of season---which has a better edge?

luds and clogston were both good enough and lucky enough to find a body of nice fish that stuck around for awhile--that's the only reason we're in the lead.

All of this back and forth is what's soured me on this, and why I'm on "inactive" status and almost definitely won't enter again. Imagine if there was real money at stake :doh: