Summer multi species league interest

[River Rat (dan)]

Like it.

Is there a fee each time?

maybe potluck?

or even a family picnic one of those weekends.

Just tossing a few ideas out there

[child23]

We could do scoring something like this

Species Length Points Limit

Bass 12-14" 4 6

Bass 14-16" 6

Bass 16-18" 8

Bass 18-20" 10

Bass 20" + 15

Northern 18-20" 4 3 - no more than 1 over 30"

Northern 20-24" 6

Northern 24-28" 8

Northern 28-34" 12

Northern 34" + 18

Walleye 12-16" 8 6 - no more than 1 over 20"

Walleye 16-18" 10

Walleye 18-24" 12

Walleye 24" + 15

Sunfish 7-9" 0.5 20

Sunfish 9" + 2

Crappie 9-14" 1 10

Crappie 14" + 4

Perch 8" + 1 20

Carp Any length 3 50 - No penalty for dead fish

Sucker Any length 3

Catfish 0-16" 2 5 only 1 over 24"

16-20" 4

20"+ 6

Bullhead Any length 1 point

Sheepshead,

Rock bass

all other rough fish Any length 1 point No Limit

[CANOPY SAM]

Looks good child. It's your call, but I still think you should take that "other" category out of there. I know from previous tourney experience that people will be po'd if they bring in a nice bunch of game fish, and lose to someone with a pile of sheepshead, suckers and carp (me included).

Not down-playing rough fish, but they just don't belong in a tournament setting, unless it's a rough fish tournament. Someone could easily win the whole kit and kaboodle just fishing for Sheepshead with worms from one spot on the river. Anyone can catch rough fish anytime. They're not really a good measure of fishing skill.

By the way child, could we maybe at least have your first name? It seems a little awkward calling you child.

[CANOPY SAM]

If no one is opposed to the idea, and everyone is in agreement, I think we should have a pre-season meeting to go over the rules, and discuss some ideas on fishing destinations, etc.. This would be a good time to get to know how many folks are actually interested in doing this, and give us each an opportunity to put a few faces to a name, etc..

Any suggestions on where and when we could meet in the next few weeks? Since it appears that TRF is kind of the focal point for entrants that are scattered around the area, I'd suggest we all gather at the Black Cat some evening in the next 2-3 weeks?

[child23]

My name is Travis. I think we should have a get together one night. I did make up a scoresheet today if anyone wants to look at. I did drop the rough fish category. There are 7 catagories that I have on it walleye northern pike bass crappie sunfish catfish and perch. It uses a point system like the one I posted before.

[CANOPY SAM]

Sounds good Travis! Thanks. You make the call on when and where you want to meet for a pre-season meeting.

[CANOPY SAM]

Travis? Want to throw a date out there for a pre-season meeting?

[child23]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I have quite a few things going on now that we are getting some nice weather. Should we have a get together say next Thursday the 16 th. or would it be better in a couple of weeks. Where should we meet. I'm thinking something like 7 pm for a time if that works for everyone.

[Starman73]

Would be pretty interested in summer league, have a couple friends from TRF that fish the river. I mainly fish Lake Bronson but always like fishing different places.

[CANOPY SAM]

Thursday the 16th, 7:00 p.m. at the BlackCat in TRF??? I'm in.

Welcome to the site, Starman.

[lovebigbluegills]

Thursday, 7:00pm at the Black Cat works for me. Not sure if I'll be able to fish the league much this summer, but it would be nice to meet to do a meet and greet with some of the locals.

[child23]

Alright sounds good. Any idea how many people are looking at doing this?

[CANOPY SAM]

Not real sure, but I'd hope we find out something on Thursday night.

[CANOPY SAM]

Well...Travis and I showed up last night. That's all. Well, a friend of Travis' came also, but didn't seem terribly interested in the events.

Unless we missed someone there? Anyway, Travis is going to throw out a date for the first gathering/tourney, prolly in early June, and we'll see who shows up. If we get enough people we'll make it a kind of fun, low buy-in tourney, and if only a few folks show up we'll just go fishing for fun. Either way it should be a good time getting together with other local anglers on different bodies of water and learning new areas and techniques.

It's not looking good for the stretches of water between TRF and St.Hilaire. The water level now is so low it would be a real chore to navigate even in a canoe, and I'm not personally seeing a whole lot of game fish in this extremely low water.

We'll have other options though, with Maple Lake, Union Lake, Sand Lake, The Red Lake and Thief Rivers north and East of TRF, the Red Lake River down around Crookston, the Red River of the North, maybe a lake or two out by Clearbrook or Gonvik, and finally I hope we might put something together this fall up on LOTW or the Rainy River. Certainly open to other suggestions as well.

When Travis sends out the first proposed date don't be shy. This will be fun, and at a minimum at least a good opportunity to get outside and fish with some friends for a few hours!

Hope to see a bunch of you show up to these few events! Don't worry. This isn't gonna be anything like the FLW, or Fishing University. We're just a couple avid anglers out for a little fun fishing, and we'd love to see this grow into an annual, well attended group! Hope to see you out there!

[TyGuy02]

let me know when the dates will be when you pick, I'm going to try to make it. Learn some new water!

[Starman73]

Was gone for work and couldn't make it. If looking for more spots to fish Lake Bronson would be good. Lake maps are on the DNR website and many different species to fish, never know what your going to reel in. Hope I am available to make some of the dates.

[ArneRantanenJr]

I completely forgot about the meeting but am still interested. However I need to get my yard and garden done so I can fix my boat. Loving the rain right now but not happy it's preventing me from finishing my yard work

[lovebigbluegills]

Sorry about that, I completely forgot about it too. I did get one of my deer plots planted with soybeans on Thursday though

[CANOPY SAM]

Well Hey! There are 4 more that are interested! That's good. Just waiting on Travis to throw out the first date and location now.

Just an FYI, looking out to the river behind my house this morning she's come up at least a foot or two over night with the heavy rain. Weather folks are saying we'll likely get another inch or two by Wednesday morning.

I know this doesn't sit well with everyone, particularly the region's farming community, but this is really gonna help pull us out of this drought cycle. This much rain probably isn't coming at just the right time for farmers, but it sure is a welcome reprieve from so much dry weather.

Last night, coming out of our local high school following the choir program, the rain was coming down harder than I've seen in a long time. I was soaked to the bone in less than a hundred feet running to the car. I love it!

Let's just hope this brings up our river level for a while, and keeps it up there long enough to allow some fish to swim up river, other then the suckers cruising around out back right now.

[larson311]

Me and one of my friends from TRF would like to join in on the fun! We'll keep checking back for dates.

[CANOPY SAM]

Sounds good larson311! We'd be happy to see you join in. Again, just waiting for Travis (child) to post the first date and location.

For those of you who don't know, the river below the dam here in TRF is now right up to near flood stage. I'd venture we saw a five foot rise in water level since Sunday afternoon! There's a ton of water blowing thru right now, including a little debris, and of course silt and mud.

As long as this level stays up I'm pretty confident we'll see a good influx of game fish up our way. The rain appears to have finally stopped, and I don't know how much our area received, but it must have been quite a bit. There's still water standing in the fields and ditches here and there, and quite a bit of run-off heading toward the river.

I think, when the Red River of the North is high, and it's tributaries are high, the biomass of fish tend to hug the shoreline and head up river. When the water levels start to recede, which should at least start going down in few days, we should "hopefully" find good numbers of cats and walleyes in the area.

This weekend's forecast is already looking like possibly more rain? As long as we only get a shower here and there to keep the water level up a bit we should see a good season of fishing locally.

After an evening of fishing on Friday, with only a sucker or two, and way too much time between ANYTHING biting, I was ready to throw in the towel for this season's Red Lake River fishing (at least below the dam). The water was so low we could already walk across the river behind the house and barely get wet!

Praise the good Lord we got so much rain at this time of year. Will go a long way to re-filling local homestead water wells, germinating farmer's seed that's already in the field, preventing any more wildfires, feeding our deep rooted trees a good drink of water, and breathing new life into our local fishing prospects!

Now I'm super excited about fat, healthy catfish on the smoker, and fresh walleyes on the grill!

[child23]

How does Sunday June 9th sound for everyone for the first date. What should we do for hours? I do have a makeup softball game that night at 6 but can pretty much make whatever time work. What do you guys think? Maybe just have a shorter trial run day the first day to see how things go?

[larson311]

I will be down in Fergus Falls Saturday and part of Sunday, then coming back to make up softball as well , but if I'm back in time I'd go.

[CANOPY SAM]

Sunday mornings are pretty much out for me, but Sunday afternoons and evenings work fine.

I'd think Sunday the 9th from say 4 till 9? Is 5 hours too long? I'd really like to see these events scheduled during prime fishing hours = mornings and evenings. I really want to see people catch fish, everyone, so that's made more easy during prime times, rather than mid-afternoon when fishing can be kinda tough.

Where do you wanna have the first event Travis? These are just my thoughts and suggestions, so by no means do you have to follow anything I say.

[Starman73]

Sunday the 9th should work for me. If by team is there a number of people per boat, 2 or 3? May need to bring kids if coming.

[CANOPY SAM]

I think we were going to try include a separate division for kids? Otherwise I think we were going to proceed as kind of an individual tourney setting, with each member in the boat, or on shore, catching and submitting their own fish, I think? Is this correct Travis?

If this date and time doesn't work for you Travis you'd better throw something else out there. You gotta be there for this to happen. Also, where do you wanna do the first event?

[child23]

The next weekend I would have available is the last one in June. The 29 and 30th. Maybe the 29th would work better for everyone? I know I don't have anything going on that day as far as I know of yet. With all the rain as of late a lot of new things showed up on my schedule.

[child23]

Oh I forgot to say it would work as an individual tournament so whoever is in a boat

[child23]

As far as location I would say probably meet at the third street landing here in town and fish the river above the dam. Depending on how long we have the first day we can decide how much of the river will be fair game. I guess it also depends on how many show up to.

[TyGuy02]

I have it programmed into my Iphone, which means that I SHOULD remember it. Unless I cannot get off work I'll be there