Our 2 cents for WCW 2007

[Aaron&Julie]

This year has been a great year for us kayak fishing-wise. We've met some outstanding people, caught some quality fish, enjoyed fishing in our first tournaments (Moyer & OEX), and are currently exceeding our hopes of a top ten finish in the WCW 2006.
We are making a few suggestions here that might level the playing field and encourage a wider range of participation in WCW 2007.
Since most people can not get out more than once or twice a month, it seems submitting 3 or 4 fish a month gives a minority of anglers a huge advantage.

1) Why not just one fish per month? Add one mulligan during the year and that means a person can weigh in a maximum of 13 fish.

2) Also, to keep people further motivated, why not allow any fish to count? The exceptions being sharks, eels, rays and mola-molas (sunfish). This will allow everyone to score at least some points during even the slowest months, whether it be a 1 lb mackerel (also known as bait), a 3 lb yellowfin croaker, an 8 lb barracuda, or a 40 lb yellowtail.

3) Let all fish count equally, one point per pound. Any 10 pound fish is 10 points, 20 pound fish is 20 points, etc. To encourage C&R a bonus point or two could be added. This way a person catching an 8 lb calico, could weigh it, photograph it, and release it getting 9 or 10 points for his conservationism.

We would love to see this format. By July, there could be 25 people still battling closely for top honors. Everyone who joins would be submitting catches, putting even more fun into this event. We’d get to see a whole bunch of new faces out there. That would be a nice change from seeing the same faces (ours included) dominating the submissions.

P.S. With almost 900 registered users now, thanks to the fine work of Adi, hopefully we'll see more than 38 people join this year-long tournament in 2007. Everyone who might be interested in joining next year should chime in now. Feedback can do wonders for expanding participation.