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Posts: 101
Location: Liberty, IN (OKI Tri-State) | CATCH, PHOTO & RELEASE (CPR) TOURNAMENTS
Every PMTT tournament will be a Catch, photo & Release (CPR) tournament. Every tournament boat MUST have a digital camera capable of taking a clear photo operated by the contestants that catch the musky and MUST have an actual bump board (NOT A RULER OR MEASURING STICK), so your fish can be immediately released after the photo is taken, without delay. The PMTT will supply every team with an SD card for their cameras.
As soon as you catch a fish and right after you have released the fish, you must call for a PMTT official, either by cell phone or designated channel (10) on the marine band radio. Make sure you can see that the nose is touching the front of the board and that the tail & PMTT issued sticker for that tournament is in clear view. If the PMTT official cannot clearly read the measurement or sticker, they will make their best determination and that decision will be the final measurement. The fish may not count - if the official cannot see the picture at all, the sticker, the fishes nose appears to not be touching the front of the board and the measurement is close or there is no picture at all.
The PMTT officials must be able to clearly read the measurement. Check your camera to make sure you can clearly see the measurement. Release the fish after photographing it clearly with the camera on the bump board. The safe release of all fish is of utmost importance. This will be explained in great detail at tournament central during the mandatory rules meeting on Friday evening.
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Posts: 492
Location: midwest | Excellent! glad to see them go to this format! |
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Posts: 135
| It's great to see the use of an immediate release format.
At the same time, this presents some unique challenges. It sounds like the PMTT will allow contestants to use their own bumpboards, rather than providing pre-certified bumpboards for the contestants. How does the PMTT plan to control for cheating by using inaccurate bumpboards?
http://www.scout.com/outdoors/wired2fish/story/1662446-kayak-bass-f...
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | people who catch fish bring their boards in to be verified for accuracy.. It's that simple.. |
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Posts: 135
| Top H2O - 4/26/2016 7:53 PM
people who catch fish bring their boards in to be verified for accuracy.. It's that simple..
I'm not suggesting anyone is currently cheating in the PMTT; I'm just thinking through the possible holes in the system and the ways to mitigate them as part of deciding whether or not to fish the next couple events. The PMTT has had a cheating scandal in its history, so it's a possibility that I think is worth going above-and-beyond to control.
At the Cave, did all 21 teams that caught fish have their boards verified by the PMTT staff? This actually occurred? How did the PMTT ensure that teams presented the same board for verification that they used to measure the fish? (I own three bump boards and my boat compartments are big enough to hide all of them.) The strategies used by Andrew Shepherd to cheat in the kayak bass events would conceivably work in muskie tournaments as well: shortening a bump board so the first "marked" inches (typically 8" for bass, 30" for muskie boards) begin at a lesser length and/or using multiple bump boards to measure the same fish more than once at different lengths. A person motivated to cheat could conceivably then present a "good" board for verification at weigh-in.
For comparison, the AIM walleye events provide the ruler, and it must be turned back in to the officials along with the pictures of the fish. I'd be more comfortable if the PMTT did the same.
Edited by Glaucus_ 4/29/2016 10:38 AM
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Posts: 1220
| First, this whole thing with the bump boards and photos isn't exactly new. We've sort of been working up to it via the Minnesota events in Leech, Mille Lacs, Tonka and last year at the Big Vee! Everyone in the top ten finishers was asked to bring their bump boards in to check and the photos would make that really easy to match up. Those of us who caught the smaller fish were not asked, but there is no money or trophies past 10th place (trust me, I have a lot of experience in this "out of the money" area) And, the capability for grossly enlarging digital photos grants eyesight into a phony measurment to a monumental level of quality. Don't forget the winning team and at least a couple of other random top finishers have to take a lie detector test too! Last, as I've said before, I recall some cheaters from way back too, but most of us continue to plunk our entry down with a really high level of confidence in the quality of honor we sense among us. Again (cuz I'm repeating) you may get cut off, you'll certainly get disrespected here and there, but you are really, really, unlikely to be cheated. And those guys who were thought to have cheated so many years ago; driven from our midst, never allowed to fish again, and I think never heard from since---a pretty hefty price paid! When I win, you won't have to wonder, you'll know God, Himself hath ordered the fish into my net amidst firery thunderbolts raining down from heaven!! (maybe that would be cheating?) |
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Posts: 572
| I wonder how reliable the lie detector tests are.
My partner and I have Atrial fibrillation, irregular heart beats that comes and goes. Here's hoping we can come in first or second in one of the PMTT and see if having Atrial fibrillation has any impact on taking the lie detector test.
I, too, feel those fishing the PMTT have a quality of honor as Junkman stated.
Calling in the catch before measuring it helps as someone running the tournament might have a boat close to take pictures and verify the catch.
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Posts: 135
| I don't doubt that when Steckel and Machtan were involved, people would also have described the full field of competitors as honorable. Because they were! This is what makes discovering those rare exceptions so surprising and distressing. (Also, not all that long ago, as they won PMTT events in 2006 and 2007.)
I think it's reasonable to ask what a trail referring to itself as "Professional" is doing to control some easy-to-accomplish, and easy-to-foil digital shenanigans. And while it's a nice sentiment, relying on the integrity of competitors is not a management technique, it's a hope.
The AIM Walleye series sure seems to have this problem solved already, and could easily be copied. And if the PMTT doesn't want to purchase 100+ bump boards to hand out, why not simply check-measure competitors' bump boards before attaching the sticker for the day? Yes, it would take a little time.
The difference between 2nd and 3rd place in the Championship last year was 0.25 inches. That's a couple of thousand dollars difference right there...and a quarter- or half-inch of "adjustment" to your bump board lines wouldn't be likely to be noticed by visual inspection of the photograph when much of it is covered up by the fish or careful hand placement (this is what the kayak bass angler did). In an event where a team catches 3 or 4 fish, that adds up to a couple inches in the final standings.
Again, not accusing anyone of cheating, just pursuing the logic to try and discover gaps and solutions beforehand. |
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Posts: 1220
| There were 192 guys and gals last week in Kentucky that were totally fine and seamless with all this. June in Eagle River there will be 250. I'd say, that in about two more weeks the event will sell out, and it will be too late to decide if you want to fish it anyway. So, if I were you, I'd just sign up in a heckuva hurry or you'll miss the darn thing waiting to see if it's OK. There is no "perfect," no "safe" and on a statistically average day with a 100 anglers, you have an 85% chance of not catching a fish anyway! The fun you'll miss out on would be the only really bad thing that is likely to happen. Just do it, and let the PMTT worry about watching out for cheaters.....I think they know what they're doing! (and no I don't get a discount on the entry fee for saying this stuff! I look at the entry like a charitable donation) |
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