Bluewater Cowboy

I am just sitting here thinking about the upcoming fishing season and was wondering how many teams from this website are going to fish the SKA tournaments. IF your going to fish are you going to fish a few tournaments or are you going to fish the full schedule. Just wondering.

Capt. Lee Michael Norris

Speckulator

Iffn the economy holds....Me, Jamielu, and maybe Jason will be there........Keepn fingers crossed.....

George

DreamWeaver21

I haven't been a member since 04. I might this year though. Will fish the Miller lite and ADSFR for sure SKA or not. Going to LA to fish is not my thing. I've done it a couple of times and didin't care for it.

Its just a question of whether to fish nationals or not. Qualifying in class of 23 is almost automatic in division 7. There were 21 class boats last year and the top 20 are invited. Two tournaments and two fish should be plenty to qualify. I thought about going into the open division just totry and showup the whiners on other boards. Lot ofboo hooing out there over peopleusing $100k+ 27 foot class boats that run 60mph. I'd really enjoy showing them that a 30mph 21 foot boat can catch fish too. Last year it took 79lbs to qualify in division 7 open which is attainable but not automatic.

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.

Matt Mcleod

That soundspretty automatic if you ask me, a 26lb average of three fish, maybe the weather was bad or something. My how times change, several years ago it seemed to take much more. But I guess they invite 20 boats in each division to the "Championship" , I think itshould be 5 or 10.

DW you could definitely hang with the open class boats.

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Captain Matt Mcleod
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DreamWeaver21

<P style="BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #1f5080; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Yeah, I hope with gas prices down and no FLW there are a ton of boats fishing this year. Bring back the days of 300 boats in a tournament and let?s see the prizes go up!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o><P style="BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #1f5080; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">I would like to see the nationals only have the top few boats too but I understandthey need a high boat count formoney in entry fees.<o></o><P style="BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #1f5080; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">I (sort of) wish the Bud Lite was SKA.It?s a great tournament and it would be nice to have itcount towards points. I don't know what happened between the Bud Lite people and the SKA people but my instinct tells me if I heard the story I would probably side with the Bud Lite management. Still, it would be nice to have another local tournamentto count on.<o></o><P style="BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #1f5080; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">So we will definitely be chasing green meat somehow. Maybe SKA maybe not. Maybe open maybe class of 23. Just too earlyto tell, I gotta see what everyone else wants to do.

LATERALINE

We will be if I dont get transfered! 23 and under!

Strictly Bizness

we are going to fish more local stuff. might fish a few of the ska events. just have to see how it all unfolds this year. kinda take it one at a time. me and one of my team mates from last year have teamed up with hitman and his crew. should be a lot of fun bustin' waves this year in a 31 Cape!! i can't wait to get it started though. it keeps me up at night. :banghead

hit man

bustin' waves? nobody said nothin 'bout that! i thought tournaments were a friday night thing!

user285

We are planning on fishing a couple billfish tourney's this year and the local king tourney's(Miller lite, the bud lite, and possibly Biloxi), so if we have a good fish from the Miller lite we may fish a day or 2 of the alabama. :banghead:letsdrink