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I want to echo Mike's post above. In many ways, for many people, we are more than a simple website and more of a club. A lot of us fish together in small groups and sometimes big groups. We have a lot of fun and sometimes - like the CUP - we can do more as a TEAM.
So for yuse guys sitting on the fence, not sure if you want to fish on a Team, please give it a shot. Come fish with Team S-B. We are bringing on some new people to fish with us that haven't fished with us in the past - boat and surf guys - and our goal is to have even more fun and camaraderie fishing as a TEAM.
Fishing the Cup is a lot of fun, in many ways similar to fishing the storied MV Derby. One of the advantages of fishing the Cup versus the Derby is that you don't have to kill yourself for the few days, or weeks (or the whole month if you have that opportunity) that the Derby runs.
You can still fish at your pace. You can add fish to the Team standings that you may otherwise keep or weigh in for your club's tourney. Or that fish of a lifetime. Some of you will want to only keep a Personal Best, that is OK. If your personal best can also help out Team S-B that would be greatly appreciated. I know personally, I've only entered one fish in the Cup in 4 years. I still release 99% of what I catch, Cup or no Cup.
Conservation: Initially the Cup would have had many more potential fish entered but people voiced their concerns and over the years have reduced the total potential take for the tournament. OTW listened and reduced the amount if fish that could be entered and they also reduced counting towards the Team standings. Team S-B further endorses minimum sizes for fish well beyond OTW's minimums so that we don't end up weighing fish that will have little or no chance as the end of the Tournament approaches. We have not determined those numbers just yet but they will probably be 35#s shore and 43#s boat.
As an added bonus, I am considering a few limited run trips for Team S-B participants to go commando fish various hot spots such as Block Island and maybe Cuttyhunk over the course of the season to fish for Large.
Team S-B won the Cup a few years ago and has been in the running ever since, competing against of very sharp anglers - including paid professionals, commercial guys, and charter captains. It would be a great testament to our community to pull this off and bring back the Cup. I would be honored if you fish with us.
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