Angler Young Angler International Championship Adopts CR&R Format
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010This past weekend (Aug.14th) I had the opportunity once again to participate in the LUND Angler Young Angler (AYA) International Walleye Championships on Lake of the Woods and it was an eye opener to say the least.
In the event, the winning teams (comprised of an adult angler and two young anglers under 17 years old) from the 28 Regional Qualifying Tournaments from across North America gather in Kenora, Ontario and fish in the Championship. Because of the size of Lake of the Woods and the fact this is a one day, winner-take-all-championship, the regional winners are paired with ”local pros” who run the boats and guide the teams, but otherwise do not fish.
The smiles tell you everything you need to know. The 28 winning teams from the 2010 LUND AYA Regional tournaments, held across North America, take to the stage under the Harbourfront Tent in Kenora, Ontario.
For the first time ever, the AYA Championship was run on a Catch, Record and Release (CR&R) format and it proved to be amazing in terms of fish care, fish survivability, angler interest, spectator appeal and tournament organization.
Indeed, I have fished American Bass Association (ABA) events, BASSMASTER tournaments and multiple tournaments/circuits across North America on the standard format where the fish are placed in the boat’s livewell and eventually weighed in at the end of the day.
The C R & R format, on the other hand, was designed by the AIM Professional Walleye Circuit in the United States, which is comparable to the Bassmaster and FLW series on the bass side of things. As soon as a fish is caught, it is measured using an exact, tournament-provided, metal, bumper-board-scale, a digital photo is taken of the fish on the tape so the length is clearly visible and a second photo is taken of the angler holding the fish before it is immediately released. The measurements are then recorded on a score card, not unlike a golf pro recording the number of strokes on a hole. The measurements are then initialed by the angler(s) and in this case the guide. The entire process takes less than 60 seconds to complete.
By the way, at the rules meeting the evening prior to the event, each team submitted a blank SD card from their digital camera which was formatted by the LUND tournament officials and returned to the team. The first photo of the day was then taken on the docks prior to take off so that all of the photos of the fish thereafter corresponded with the fish on the scorecard and were clearly caught and released that day.
I cannot say enough about the benefits of this format and how well the system works. It is simply amazing. It is like comparing the 21st Century to the Stone Age.
At the end of the day, instead of bagging up highly stressed fish and carrying them to a weigh in scale, the score card and SD card are handed over to the tournament officials who then use a standard formula to convert the measurements to weight (pounds and ounces). It is so efficient and so effective! And lest any one think this is complicated, remember, these were often kids doing this and they had no trouble whatsoever. Indeed, the teenagers were often better at it than the adult anglers! :<)
There are simply no drawbacks to the system and yet so many positive benefits.
First of all, things like slot limits, minimum and maximum size limits, one-over-size limits, and special bag limits are totally eliminated from the equation. Because all of the fish are immediately released, at the end of the day, the teams simply tick off the 6 biggest fish they want to “weigh in” and the “weigh master” converts the measurements.
Let me give you a good example of the benefits.
On Lake of the Woods, the best “big walleye” sections of the lake from a tournament perspective are 15 to 30 miles away from Kenora. Last year, between 100 and 300 or so large walleye (from 4 to 10 pounds) were caught in these sections of the lake, placed in livewells, culled over other sections of the lake over the course of the day and then transported all the way back to Kenora where they were then bagged, weighed in and released.
As LUND’s Ryan Sproule, who was in charge of organizing the event told me, because of the time of year, water temperature, depth of water in which the fish were caught and distance travelled in very rough weather, many, likely most, of the fish died after being release. Even many of the pro guides and tournament anglers were “concerned” that so many big fish were being moved so many miles away from the prime lake areas and not surviving.
This year, however, teams were able to weigh in their best 6 big walleye, and because all of the fish were immediately released, there was no worry about the “one-over-18-inch rule”. This meant, as the AIM professional tournament circuit in the United States has shown repeatedly, and remember these are the top pros in the business , that events can be held on almost any water across North America despite the lake specific regulations.
Indeed, I have spoken with many of the top professional walleye anglers … people like Gary Parsons (the winningest professional angler in walleye tournament history) and John Butts, the only Canadian walleye angler ever to win a Professional Walleye Trail tournament and to a person they will tell you they love the C R & R format. Having seen it in action, I can understand why.
So what are the draw backs?
Ever since the tournament I have been wracking my brain, talking to the organizers, guides and anglers alike and quite frankly I can’t find a single one!
With the C R & R format, there is no need for large numbers of volunteers to handle fish at the weigh in site. There is no need for fish holding tanks, no requirement for expensive on-site water and oxygen systems, no need for fish to be trucked or boated back to specific parts of the lake, no anglers arguing with tournament officials as to whether a fish is dead, alive or stressed and no long waiting lines of 100 - 150 teams of anglers waiting 2 or more hours to weigh in their fish. Everything just goes so fast, so slick, so efficiently and so effectively that it is silly.
Indeed, the only thing I worried about a little before I saw how efficiently the weigh in procedure ran, was whether or not a tournament would offer the same “spectator appeal”. It not only does, it actually improves it! I kid you not.
First, because the weigh in doesn’t go one forever, with fish being dumped into weigh in tubs and the like, spectators don’t drift away and leave. It is like a one hour concert. At the LUND AYA event, the Top 10 teams were notified in advance and assembled behind the weigh in tent. The Top 10 teams were then randomly assigned to a LUND boat and brought into the tent. Our team was lucky enough to have 30.1 pounds (we didn’t know it at the time) for our best 6 walleye and we were assigned to be the second last team to weigh in. (We finished 3rd by the way).
Jason Gauthier, the best professional tournament Emcee in the business had the crowd up on its feet cheering and hollering as each boat was brought in with the appropriate music blaring in the background. Next year, the LUND folks are anticipating using the Kenora Arena, having a live band and blackening out the arena as the boats and anglers are paraded into the building amidst a laser light show and fog machine.
The only thing different between the C R & R format and the standard weigh in process is that there are no fish to handle and worry about. Instead, life size photos from the day’s catch are displayed on a background screen / jumbotron as the anglers go up on stage. Then the team that is leading and currently sitting in the “hot seat” stands up, while the Emcee hypes up the crowd just as he does at an actual weigh in. He heightens the drama and the weight is announced and flashed across the screen and the crowd either cheers wildly as a new leader takes over the “hot seat” or groans if they fail to overtake the current leaders. The hype and excitement is identical to an actual weigh in.
BUT …. the fish are all alive, all swimming in the lake on the same points, bars and shoals where they were originally caught. There are no dead fish penalties to be assessed, no teams of anglers upset with a weigh master who “read the scales too quickly or too slowly”. No complaints that the scales ”weighed our fish too lightly”. No irate cottage or property owners screaming that, “the fish that was living under my dock was caught by that tournament angler and moved 30 miles” and no Natural Resource Agencies worrying about the fact that bass or walleye were caught in 20, 30, or 40 feet of water, brought to the surface, placed in oxygen deprived water that is 20 degrees warmer and then moved an any number of miles away from their critical spawning and or summer habitat. And, inordinate numbers of fish are not being stockpiled around release sites, unable to find their “way home”.
Quite frankly, this is one of the very few opportunities I have ever seen where, from the tournament organizers’ perspective, anglers’ viewpoint, spectators’ perspective and Natural Resource agency’s point of view that everyone wins.
Thanks to the AIM tournament folks who first developed the CR&R format and the LUND folks who have demonstrated both at LUNDMANIA and the AYA International Championship, comparing the old style live fish weigh in system to the innovative C R & R format, is like comparing a 1960s performance by the Rolling Stones in black and white on the old Ed Sullivan Show to a Rolling Stones Concert today at the Air Canada Centre.
There simply IS no comparison.
Quite simply, the AIM and LUND folks have brought tournament angling into the 21st Century with the CR&R format and opened up an array of exciting new possibilities.
If I was a tournament organizer I’d embrace the benefits of the C R & R format fully, given how efficient, effective, time and labour saving it is. And if I was a tournament angler I’d demand its use given how perfectly it works. Heck, you can go back to a spot on Day 2 and Day 3 of a tournament and reasonably expect to catch a big fish again if you handled it properly the first time you caught, photographed and released it!
The Jensen family from Timmins, Ontario (Emily, Mark and Tara) along with LUND Pro Guide, Behn Gustafson (left) and LUND AYA Special Events Coordinator, Ryan Sproule (right), pose proudly with the second place LUND AYA Championship prize, an all expense paid trip for four to Miminiska Lodge on the Albany River. The first place winners won an all expense trip to Disney World, including a fishing excursion on one of the Disney World lakes.
