I was checking out next years schedule for the IFA kayak tour because I thought it would be cool to fish a tourny in the yak...well it looks like there will not be a tournament around here in 2013. The had one in JAX and the others were down by Tampa. Just wondering if anyone has heard anything else..?
No doubt dude. WDE. I have never fished over that way either, but i constantly bug my buddy to let me look his pictures. It is amazing at the numbers of fish and big fish that are caught over there. He laughs at me when I show him a 20" trout.
I fish the Ifa kayak tour and I know of 4 of us in Pensacola that will be traveling to Louisiana this year. With the exception of the license it's closer and cheaper than fishing the gulf division last year in Port St Joe and PCB. Hope to see some more Pensacola guys over there. It's the only way we will get our division back or at least one of the tournaments over here!
I buy my license for Louisiana online and a year is $90.00. Well worth it the fishing is unbelievable!!! I make a lot of trips every year. You can be in great fishing in less than 3 hrs from Pensacola!
Yeah it sucks but la is about 30-45mins closer than any of the gulf division tournaments so ill be fishing the louisiana division and prolly some of the ones in jax its still gonna be a great year!
I will be ones of the ones traveling to la to fish the ifa also. Sucks our gulf division is gone. Voice you opinion! Go to there facebook or website amd email them.
Here is the email response from the IFA.
Guess we can blame it on the economy, or Obama, or George W. Bush. Whoever you choose...
Michael,
We, like many of you, are disappointed that we have had to temporarily discontinue our Gulf Division events for 2013, but it came down to an economic decision based on overall turnouts for both the IFA Redfish Tour/Kayak Fishing Tour events combined. We know that we have a great group of loyal anglers in the Gulf Coast area, unfortunately we didn't get enough combined entries to make the numbers work. We hope that this is a temporary situation and that we will be able to return to having a full Gulf Division in the near future. In the meantime, we hope that you are able to fish with us in other divisions. Again, we regret that we have had to go this direction, but under the circumstances, it was unavoidable. We thank you for your future support!
Should you have any questions, please let me know.
Why don't we put together a local tournament? GCKA only does one a year.
Maybe get some of the local tackle shops and such to kick in some prizes. Doesn't have to be a big thing to start. There are grants available for this kind of thing.
I am game of you all are. I'm semi-retired so I have some time on my hands to coordinate stuff.
PM me if you are interested and I can start to coordinate if the interest is there.
We are putting together a tournament as we speak. It will start this Friday and last until march first. It will be a redfish and trout tournament. CPR (catch photo release) longest fish wins. If a tie first fish submitted wins. It will be $30 entry and tokens will be available Friday at Hot Spots. We will post more in a new thread later today or Wednesday. If we get a good turn out we will do a lot more of these through out the year along with the miller lite kayak tournament.
Thanks,
Chad
Perhaps the local tourist bureau which has been received large sums of the BP money can throw some bones your way. I would start a lobby of your elected officials. Can't hurt? The money they got is also supposed to promote our area and tourism? This would be a great way to attract more people to the area!
Grant money is out there. Better for a small grass roots organization to apply. Especially if it includes persons with disabilities, education, and conservation.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Pensacola Fishing Forum
2.4M posts
48.8K members
Since 2007
Pensacola Fishing Community and Forum Featuring Helpful Forums, Links, News, and other Resources.