2010 - 2011 PFTS - a recap and ??? about the next series
Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:19 am
With the series complete, I thought I'd pass on some of the 'number's and other issues.
Let me start by thanking everyone who attended. You folks are the reason this series continues as the longest running kayak/canoe fishing tournament series in the state of Florida.
With that, we simply do not understand why more people don't attend. We think we should be thanking a lot more people. We've designed a series to be fun, low cost and to level the playing field. The feedback from those that do attend and the numbers below make us pretty confident we've accomplished that.
How about a show of hands from people who have met someone for the first time at a PFTS and ended up going fishing with them at a later date.
(that's as close to a hands up smilie that I could find...)
As far as competitors, there were over 80 different contestants throughout the 5 events.
As to leveling the playing field, take a look at this. At each event there are 12 winner slots. 3 in the Slam division, 3 in each of the Trout, Redfish and Snook divisions. Over 5 events, that's 60 winning slots. Those 60 slots were filled by 40 different contestants.
Two anglers had 4 wins, one angler had 3 wins, Twelve anglers had 2 wins and Twenty Five people had one win. There were many first time winners this year. My gut tells me that, from conversations at Pic n' Sips, there were many who had their first ever win in any fishing tournament at a PFTS event.
That, IMO, is significant. Just about half of those who showed up placed in one of the winning categories. We either have a very level group of fishermen or we've done a good job of leveling the playing field with the formats we've set up.
One other point. For those of you that have fished other tournaments, how many of them start announcing the winners within 15 minutes of the cut off time for entering fish? I have to give a lot of credit to Todd and MarkM for that. I'm just the gopher boy they send around to pick up camera chips.
Todd, Mark and I really do like putting on this series. It is a lot of fun for us and we enjoy getting together with those that attend. However, as anyone who has ever put on a fishing tournament can tell you, it is a lot of work. 100's of miles driven and dozens of phone calls begging, cajoling and arranging for prizes is just part of it. There's also arranging for the Pic n' Sip location to make sure they are prepared for 40 people to show up. And someone has to deal with those smelly and sticky bags and tokens.......
This series is for the anglers of Paddle-Fishing.com. We've purposely set it up to be a local tournament series that is as much a meet, greet and have fun event as it is a contest. The PFTS is for us. There are plenty of those 'big gun' tournaments for those with a hankering for that level of tournament fishing.
So here's your chance. Give us some input on what we could do to make the series better attended.
Let me start by thanking everyone who attended. You folks are the reason this series continues as the longest running kayak/canoe fishing tournament series in the state of Florida.
With that, we simply do not understand why more people don't attend. We think we should be thanking a lot more people. We've designed a series to be fun, low cost and to level the playing field. The feedback from those that do attend and the numbers below make us pretty confident we've accomplished that.
How about a show of hands from people who have met someone for the first time at a PFTS and ended up going fishing with them at a later date.
(that's as close to a hands up smilie that I could find...)As far as competitors, there were over 80 different contestants throughout the 5 events.
As to leveling the playing field, take a look at this. At each event there are 12 winner slots. 3 in the Slam division, 3 in each of the Trout, Redfish and Snook divisions. Over 5 events, that's 60 winning slots. Those 60 slots were filled by 40 different contestants.
Two anglers had 4 wins, one angler had 3 wins, Twelve anglers had 2 wins and Twenty Five people had one win. There were many first time winners this year. My gut tells me that, from conversations at Pic n' Sips, there were many who had their first ever win in any fishing tournament at a PFTS event.
That, IMO, is significant. Just about half of those who showed up placed in one of the winning categories. We either have a very level group of fishermen or we've done a good job of leveling the playing field with the formats we've set up.
One other point. For those of you that have fished other tournaments, how many of them start announcing the winners within 15 minutes of the cut off time for entering fish? I have to give a lot of credit to Todd and MarkM for that. I'm just the gopher boy they send around to pick up camera chips.
Todd, Mark and I really do like putting on this series. It is a lot of fun for us and we enjoy getting together with those that attend. However, as anyone who has ever put on a fishing tournament can tell you, it is a lot of work. 100's of miles driven and dozens of phone calls begging, cajoling and arranging for prizes is just part of it. There's also arranging for the Pic n' Sip location to make sure they are prepared for 40 people to show up. And someone has to deal with those smelly and sticky bags and tokens.......
This series is for the anglers of Paddle-Fishing.com. We've purposely set it up to be a local tournament series that is as much a meet, greet and have fun event as it is a contest. The PFTS is for us. There are plenty of those 'big gun' tournaments for those with a hankering for that level of tournament fishing.
So here's your chance. Give us some input on what we could do to make the series better attended.
It is up to all of us to keep the destinations page updated and current. I still don't know where that one launch site is and I live pretty close to it. 
).