Jamielu

DW,

Not to sound bitchy, but qualifying in the class division may have been 'almost automatic' last year, but I wouldn't necessarily count on that again this year. Gas prices are a helluva lot cheaper now than they were a year ago, and I think that kept alot of people from fishing as many tournaments as they would have liked last year (I know it did with us!). Italso made it a little easier last year with the SKAbumping it up to the top 20 qualifyinginstead of the top 15 - it used to be much more difficult. I think the first year I fished, it took something like 115 lbs to qualify. I really hope that with the gas prices dropping, we'll see alot more folks fishing this year!

As far as moving up to the open class......go for it. I know that you canfish, I'm not putting you down, I've seen your tournament finishes -but again, that whole gas thing from last year.........I think there will be alot more boats fishing more tournaments this year, so I'm betting that field will be a little more challenging.Also,kinda wondering how many of those thatfished only the FLW last year will be back since that avenue's not available anymore. If I remember correctly, there was a class team from TX (with some pretty respectable finishes in previous years)that decided last year that they could fish the open class and qualify with no problems......don't think they qualified for Nationals - maybe it wasn't quite as easy as they thought. Not saying you can't, just saying maybe it's not quite as easy as some might think. I really expect that we'll have more boats back fishing this year than in the last year or so, so it may be a little tougher.

Just a few thoughts. Again, not trying to soundsnotty or trying to stir any crap up or anything like that, just some food for thought. I guess we'll see you at the Mack Attack in a few months.