Our club is considering a paper tournament during the catch and immediate release season in the spring. Just looking for input on how others have done this and how it went.
The ABA does a couple a year. When i fished them, they always went smooth. of course, you might have a couple guys who will complain. It was always funny to me that the guys who would complain about the format and accuse others of "cheating" would be back year after year for paper tournaments.
It has the potential to get hairy, but if your club members are all good guys who trust each other, its a great way to compete at a time of the year.
You really should have 2 people on the boat who dont really know each other. that way, at least there is a witness for the measuring of the fish.
McCarter himself :-\'
So do you go by weight or length?
When using a Golden Rule, you initially go by length, but there's a conversion on the board and you can add up estimated poundage using that and go with those numbers. That's how our club has done it in the past.
Hard to go by weight considering even if everyone had the same scales, there would be variations.
Most paper tournaments use the Bass version of the Golden Rule Weighmaster board that has 1/8" increments that convert to a weight also printed on the measuring board. If every boat has one of them on board, then you will just have to listen to the stories about who's bass was fatter... ;D (McCarter is right on about some groups, but for most club tournaments it should work out fine with a few rules about using the same measuring method and having the other angler observe and confirm the measurement.)
All you need is a paper form for each boat and/or person to write down their measurements that can be converted to weight then or later. I have one I got from Anthony that I used for the annual spring DK Open on Lake St. Clair during May.
I had really bad luck 2 years ago trying to get an order from Gator Grip....Hopefully they have gotten things squared away now...They did send me a nice weigh in bag for free because of my troubles..(It took over a month for the order to be sent and I didn't get them in time for my paper tourney)
Like Tom said, you MUST change the length measurement to a weight measurement otherwise the winner by length may not be the winner by weight. I still belong to one club that won't change over because "length is the way we've always done it". Duh
Example:
5 fish @ 14 inches = 70 inches = approx 7 lbs. 8 oz.
4 fish @ 15 3/8 inches = 61 1/2 inches = approx 8 lbs. 0 oz.
3 fish @ 17 1/4 inches = 51 3/4 inches = approx 8 lbs. 10 oz.
2 fish @ 20 inches = 40 inches = approx 9 lbs. 2 oz.
3 fish @ 14 inches = 42 inches = approx 4 lbs. 8 oz.
1 fish @ 20 1/2 inches = approx 5 lbs. 0 oz.
I've used these as some examples but you can see how it works. Make sure all fish are measured the same way, mouth shut, tail pinched.
Somewhere I have a form that I made years ago that I printed on heavy tag paper we used for our paper tournaments. If you want it, let me know and I'll see if I still have it. It wasn't fancy but it got the job done.
Mark