1.Since we are changing the format to a 2 fish weigh-in, I believe the weight differentials between an already extremely tight field will become even less. We weigh fish to hundreds of a pound, which means the tournament directors will really need to be on their toes to make sure items like ice, excessive fish slime, items like zip ties or other things to mark fish, and residual slime in fish baskets from previously weighed fish, are not allowed at the scales. I would also advocate random selection of fish at the weigh-in for examination of stomach contents. Lets see what a few fish were eating for fun.
For the youth angler tournament, I would like to see this tournament change to a team format. Under the “5 and done” regulation, luck becomes more of a factor than skill. Lets encourage the kids to have teams of 3 or 4. Invite their friends, make-up a team name, maybe even a contest to award the best team spirit or team apparel, and eliminate any chance of rules infractions through collaboration or catching more than 5 fish per angler. Maybe this puts more of a burden on a team captain to round up enough kids and buy more door prizes lol but who wouldn’t love to see the results of that?
We will have two tournament directors next year. We have no current plans to put the leader board back in place. If a couple of club members wanted to step up and take it as a project that would be fine with me. It does take some effort and there is equipment to haul around. I do not know the status of the board we were using since we did not use it last year. I do not know if our digital scales are capable of providing that information with some added equipment. I think I remember that not being an option with our model but I could be wrong. I will get the model number and check that out.
I will see what kind of program we could design and see if we can make the leader board happen.And by the way it is great to see some folks speak there mind on a few things that they want since no one ever mentions what they would like to see changed so that leaves the board and pac committee to make decisions without knowing what the members want.Keep the suggestions coming and thanks to everyone who make this a great club
I agree that i would like to see some sort of leaderboard come back. Even if it is the dry eraser board with magnets and team names. I enjoyed watching the board take shape.
I can imagine that extra load on the tx directors for this. It would def take a couple volunteers to handle just the board.
“All fisherman lie. And if they say otherwise, then they’re lying”
I liked it as well. We just need someone to own it. The magnetic board that Joey had set up worked well. TD’s just cannot do it without significantly slowing down the weigh in process. I have managed the board some and it is not as easy as it sounds. It is very easy to get right so people can take a picture when we are done. It is not as easy, without slowing things down, to keep it in rank order after each person weighs in.
Someone step up and own the board. Good chance to get involved. Could help get you ready for a TD spot.
I checked on the Pro Tournament site. They have a five line leaderboard that “may” work with our scales. At a cost of $2700 plus carrying case I am not sure that is something we would want to spend our money on. It does update but with only five lines you have to decide whether to show everyone and wait for it to scroll or just show top five. Neither one addresses the “I want to take a picture with me” opinion.
I always advocated the club purchase a laptop for the TX directors to use and enter the info at the weigh-ins. As Joby said, this is extra work, so the TX Director needs a full committee to perform these extra tasks.
With a laptop on site at the weigh-ins, a 32" to 48" LCD HDTV monitor could display the results as entered. It would require 120 vac or a generator/inverter, or there are 12 vdc monitors available such as installed on large boats. A small anti-glare hood could be easily attached for good visibility.
At any rate, this method would be far cheaper than $2700 for a scrolling marquee.
All good ideas on this thread. We have plenty of new members last 3 years .Maybe an additional TD or sub committee could handle the leader board . Jim’s idea looks good and much cheaper.Club looks like it’s evolving changes are good and healthy.JMO
TOM GITTO
Team Shad Up and Fish member
20ft Sea Hunt cc Red T Top
The two tournament director positions have there hands full so if this is going to happen someone will have to step up and do it but joby and myself will be happy to research and come up with a plan jims looks like a good idea and chips will definitely be cheaper for the club
I am sure many of us could make a spreadsheet for scoring such as simple spreadsheet for tallying individual team weights, complete with macros. However, I went to the “Protournament Scales” site below and they suggest the Taysys tournament software.(See second link…) While there are several versions of the software, the “Tournament Keeper” ProScale Edition will do all and more than we would ever want, including record keeping and payout calculations on the spot. It also links with the scales and Leader Board display if you have one ($1295.00 for the board). The software and license is only $299.95. I suggest the tournament directors and possibly one or two others form a committee to review the software and present a proposal for MSC to purchase this software for 2015. It will make weight entry, placement calculation and payouts very quick and clean. A 30 day free trial is available for demo that I have downloaded to check it out…
Pick the edition that best fits your needs…
Standard edition only $115.00
Pro Scale edition only $185.00
Pro Scale edition with Leader Board compatibility just $299.95
Pretty sure my response is ill advised, but I’ve never been one to shy away from being controversial … So here’s my .02 …
All this fine (and expensive) equipment sounds great talking about it in theory, but exactly who is going to carry (much less setup and/or operate) all this fine equipment everyone else wants to see at the weigh-ins?
We all FISH the tournaments so all this “equipment” has to either be carried to the weigh-in, left in a vehicle, or ride in a boat … none of which are good ideas …
Then all this equipment (presuming it hasn’t been damaged/gotten wet/been fried in a vehicle/stolen) has to be setup (in advance of the weigh-in) and if there are any technical “difficulties” then there WILL be delays …
Even if you nominated two more directors it will still be a challenge … Unless these additional directors would be also be willing to NOT fish the tournaments - again, not likely to happen …
Let’s try not to overcomplicate an already difficult task that is currently being done well given the circumstances …
In close, the MSC tournaments are great and all, but let’s face facts … We’re not big enough to warrant a need for this type of equipment nor do we have the infrastructure in place to transport/setup/operate/tear down this additional equipment …
I agree we can live without all the electronic TV’s or digital displays for the club at this point… However a good software program designed to tally the weights and put them in order quickly would greatly speed up the process and the payout calculations. I am working on one now just for fun below… It has drop down box for selecting the teams quickly, and auto calculates the winners by position, total weight, Biggest fish, and Smallest Creel Winners. Right now you input “pounds and ounces”, but I can modify for pounds and decimals easily.
I do feel everyone enjoyed the magnetic board just to watch the changes as they occurred and to see where you finished overall easily. I hated to see that disappear, but I know it was involved…
It would appear we are discussing spending money and a ton of effort so we can take a picture of the results and have instantaneous ranking. I normally have the ranking out by Monday. So how much effort is the club willing to undertake for two days? We could buy software but as Rick said who is going to use it and be responsible for supplying it at each event. Remember we tried this year having someone key in the data to a spreadsheet while we were weighing in. He was not able to get everything he needed keyed without us slowing down the weigh in. Our current model does everything that wa mentioned above except determine how much the payout is. It could do that but we all know what it is so it is fairly easy to do.
I think this is all interesting discussion. We should always look to see how we can I prove. We also need to make sure the trade off is worth it.
I would also mention that this string has been going on a while and no one has jumped up and said they would take on the extra responsibility. We have to determine how complicated we want to make our tournaments.
The spreadsheet I just developed for the fun of it has “drop down boxes” to select each team name, or can be manually added. You then key in the weights as they call them out, and the page displays a “running total” of 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place, Big Fish, and Smallest Creel. Page two is a full recap of the tourney that computes the placement of all entries and winners, points awarded, & the payouts automatically for you. Can’t see how that can be slower than writing it on paper as the weigh in goes along and then trying to tally the weights and places on the fly while everyone waits patiently. Warren uses a similar spreadsheet and usually the only hold up is writing the checks…
Of course with the “Two Fish” weigh-in now, it’s half the workload… Ha!
Yes, two people (Warren & Pam) and successful weigh-ins… That is provided people pay prior to the MSC weigh-in start time as requested! Also, our TWT is supposedly run separate outside the normal club weigh-in, so priority should be the club weigh-in for our directors who do a great job each month. And there are always willing volunteers to handle putting the fish in the scales if needed, or removing baskets to speed things up. While I would love to volunteer and say I would run the software each tourney, unfortunately with family commitments for the first part of the year, I am not sure how many of those I will actually fish. Perhaps I could share those duties with someone if we found a software we liked for tracking our weigh-ins and yearly totals.
What ever the tourney and PAC committee decides is fine… As a club we should always strive to make the weigh-ins easy, professional and enjoyable for all, however it was nice to see how the weigh-in played out and to know where you finished when leaving the dock.
I think I get the disconnect now. As long as I am TD I will still use the paper forms as well as a tracking model. You would have to have been a TD to know how many questions come up after the fact. I keep the paper forms for a while in case I need to go back and make any corrections or answer any questions. Might just be the old guy thing but I like the paper back up so one of us would still be handling that at the weigh in.
