I will be fishing at least four of them. GH, Musk, Holland, Ludington, and maybe SH and Saug. Our goal is to finish in the top ten, but when we dont its always a learning experience. It really is not about the prize money in each tourney,although it is nice, but the challenge and fun of competition. I hope gas prices stay down, so more people can participate and we can continue building on the tournaments.

Ray V
Early Bird

We have yet to discuss the 2009 season yet in detail but I would expect we are going to fish South Haven, Grand Haven, Muskegon, Holland and Saugatuck. Someday we will head north again but it’s hard to fish 5 with Summer being so busy. Our goal is to be competitive and catch the total allowed for the daily box which would include bonus fish if needed. We have caught our limit on both days and not placed before and had a good time. In four years of fishing 2 day tourneys getting all your fish means placing in the money for the most part. If the purses go down we will still fish. The entire trail is going to be challenged with the current economy this year and into the future so we need to buckle down and be careful of the guaranteed payouts. It will be a huge bonus if gas prices are lower for the sport. If higher prices come back we will still fish. Part of the reason we fish from SH to Musk is that we can keep tourney cost lower by staying at home and trailer the boat daily back and forth. We enter every side bet and the 333 at every port and we spent from $550 to $750 every tournament. Some boats have more than that for the weekend gas bill.

As a group we need to discuss expectations of the tournament committees with weather calls and tournament payouts for the sport to grow. Last year was only the start of the challenge for the payout side as getting sponsors is going to get difficult. For the tournaments that we fished last year which would have been 10 competitive days on the water only 1 day was real nice with a few average days then 7 days of huge waves and some thunderstorms. After South Haven we will stay closer to port if the waves are going to be big. That is one disadvantage to having a smaller boat. It’s four months until the first tournament for us so lets pray for a better economy and calm sea’s this Summer. I hope to start seeing everybody at the shows and seminars coming up.