So Bass Pro is having the US Open Amateur Team Championship this summer. A million bucks to the winner!  I’ve been day dreaming a little about this.  If I fished it, I think I would have to win just to cover my expenses.

 

Anyhow, if I were to participate it would be at Lake St. Clair, the closest qualifier to me.  I’ve noticed they expect 250 team entries, the launch they are starting from only has 160 parking spaces.  Where are the rest going to park?  Grassy areas seem like a no-no for such an event.

 

With 250 boats/500 people registering and inspections it looks like it’s going be take a long time to get the whole thing going. From what I can tell there might be 8 slots to launch from. This is amateur fishing, so I’m sure there will be some performance anxiety backing trailers in, for both launch and recover.

 

I’ve never fished a tournament, so my first thought about the whole thing is chaos . They have targeted amateur fisherpeople and not provided any information on how they are going to run the show.  Anyone fish a large tournament? Is it as crazy as it sounds?

 

 

I’m thinking about entering the qualifier on Okeechobee but a 900.00 entry fee is a little stiff. 
 

A few BFL tournaments down here had to be limited to 200 boats. 
They average about 180 which can get crazy at times. 
They most likely will have flights of 15-20 take off at intervals to keep the congestion down, and schedule weigh-ins 15 min apart. 
 

It usually goes pretty smooth even with that large of a field as long as they have enough staff on hand. 
The weigh-ins take much longer than the take off. 
The one thing that will speed it up is the availability of weigh-in bags if that’s the format they will use, which I hope they don’t but I haven’t checked on that yet. 
 

Mike

It will largely depend on the outfit running the event.  Fished a Toyota owners tour in September on pickwick.  Launched 240 boats I think it was that morning and it was smooth as silk. Ive fished a few 100 boat tournaments locally that have been a train wreck.  I suspect with bps handling the whole deal they have experienced personnel manning these events. I'm most likely going to enter for the old hickory one myself since it's the closest to me. Seems like a pretty good and big deal for the weekend angler 

They'll have different flights I'm sure. Like one group going at 0630, one at 0645, and so on so it gives time to get people launched, the area cleared, next group launched, area cleared, until everyone is fishing. Keeps the ramp cleared at take out also.

I'm thinking of putting my name in the hat for it and making the 12hr drive from Lake Champlain. I think it will be a good time.

16 hours ago, stewa107 said:

I'm thinking of putting my name in the hat for it and making the 12hr drive from Lake Champlain. I think it will be a good time.

 

The place my wife works at recently had a roof collapse.  That has kind of squashed any ideas of me going.  If you do go, do a short write-up of the event.  I would be interested on how it goes.