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| Hey folks,
Sorry about not getting the results out quicker, but with all the bad storms and weather we were experiencing, Stella could not get a connection from there. He tried several locations, but it wasn't going to happen.
Bad weather and poor fishing conditions seems to be the theme this year at each of the qualifying tournaments this year and the PMTT Musky Hunter Magazine Fall Melt Down event on the Detroit River this past weekend was no exception. Heavy down pours of rain all night long before and all the way through day one of the tournament made for some very tough fishing, followed by high skies and mostly sunny conditions with high winds made day two of the tournament even tougher yet. After it was all done 8 teams caught 10 fish with two teams doubling.
The team of Ross Korpela and John Adkins both from MN. came up with a game plan because of a bad hand. Because of a work related injury to Adkins hand that almost kept him out of the tournament, they decided he would work a bondy bait, a large jigging type bait off the weed breaklines on the shipping channel. While Adkins worked the bottom in the fourteen to twenty two foot depths, Korpela cast bucktails up on the weedflats.
While bumping the black bondy bait off the bottom they caught a mix bag of walleye, bass and muskies. They boated a 40.25” & 44” muskies to give them big fish award for day one along with the first place check and hardware to take home.
Greg Thomas and Dave Grochowski, one of the top producing teams throughout the years on the PMTT, after getting blanked on day one of the tournament, decided to troll perch colored legend crankbaits in the shipping channels one hundred and fifty feet back and twenty two feet down to make contact and bounce the bottom. It paid off big as they boated a 37.25” & 44.50” which was also big fish for day two. Their decision to change areas and to troll paid off as they took home the second place hardware.
Third place goes to another top producer over the years on the trail in Kevin Selders and Mike Money, who were trolling shallow weeds with bulldawgs and boated a 40.75” fish. The were also the winners of the Ranger Cup award. Fourth place honors go to the team of Mark & David Filas who caught a 39.50” musky on a bucktail casting shallow weedbeds. Filling out the top five was Kevin Hopfensperger and Pam Leopold who caught a 39” fish from shallow weeds casting crane twitch baits.
The rest of the teams that boated a fish are as follows.
6th. Jon Bondy & Kevin Long – 37.50”
7th. Ron & Rich Weidner – 36.75”
8th. Dewey Stewart & Forrest Kay – 36.25”
We will have all the updates and the top teams going to the championship up on our website in a day or so.
Tim Widlacki |
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Posts: 1529
| i only see 2 legal fish caught according to the state and provincial regs.. hows this can it be explained? |
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Location: Rhinelander. | Thank you for the report Tim . Congrats to all those catching fish and going to the champioship. Good luck in Minnesota.
Pfeiff |
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Location: Palm Coast, FL | woodieb8 - 9/15/2008 6:36 AM
i only see 2 legal fish caught according to the state and provincial regs.. hows this can it be explained?
They are caught and released right on the spot. |
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Posts: 32803
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | The PMTT counts fish as 'entered in the event' that are smaller than legal according the state/provincial regs. The same scenario is set for Pelican Lake this weekend with the Hodag Challenge. In that case, Wisconsin allows for in-the-net boatside registration, measuring the fish and releasing it quickly witnessed by a judge boat. Average time to contact a judge boat is about 3 minutes in that event; can't speak for the PMTT in this case.
If local regulations prohibit measuring and releasing a fish at boatside, usually a variance is issued to the tournament for the days they are on that water. Most areas do not prohibit measuring and photographing a 'short' fish as long as it is not taken into possession, by live-welling or keeping the fish out of the water long enough to threaten survival. I guarantee one thing, the PMTT anglers always baby the fish and take great care not to harm them, so that is not going to be an issue.
It seems the controversy here is the definition of 'immediate release', and whether or not that phrase in the regulations is violated by boatside registration in this event. |
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| It seems the controversy here is the definition of 'immediate release', and whether or not that phrase in the regulations is violated by boatside registration in this event.
or more accurately, the controversy is whether or not the PMTT was adequately prepared and had fully coordinated with the governing enforcement agencies ahead of time.
i know it's easy to snipe from the sidelines, and i sure don't know any of the details of why the event ran into conflicts with regulation enforcement. however, this clearly isn't the kind of issue that should catch a professional organization by surprise.
Tim? what exactly happened, and why?
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | From my understanding according to the Basin Supervisor, the Michigan DNR (or OMNR) did not give them permission to do this. In no uncertain terms PMTT was told that retaining a fish while waiting for a judge boat would be considered "possession" and anglers doing so would be ticketed. From the information I have, the DNR tried to contact PMTT organizers to resolve the situation and never got a reply.
Edited by Will Schultz 9/15/2008 9:16 AM
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | lambeau, absolutely. One assumes the agencies were contacted; if not, then the PMTT was indeed unprepared for this issue, placing the contestants at risk of 'breaking the law'and being ticketed. |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | To update my earlier post... there was finally contact between the PMTT and MI-DNR and this is directly from the Basin Supervisor: "After several emails and phone calls I finally got a call back from the tournament organizer. He assured me that he will tell everyone about procedures during the tournament - that fish are not to be held in nets over the side of the boat or in live wells. If a "judge boat" in not there by the time a fish is boated....the anglers are to take a digital photo and release the fish."
Edited by Will Schultz 9/15/2008 9:57 AM
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Location: Palm Coast, FL | Will,
Exactly! That is the same way the PMTT was ran at the Fox Chain event earlier this year. You were to measure, photo and then contact a judge boat to come verify your digital photo. You were not allowed to start fishing again until your catch (photo) was verified. |
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| I know they have done this in the past and I dont see a problem with the digital photo system. Isnt that what the Dunwright boards are for. Catch, photo, release. Sure thought there was gonna be more and bigger fish. |
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| These are my home waters and loved the event down here hopefully it will be back, my hat is off to the boys&girls how stuck it out in the conditions not a lots of fish taken buts its fishing not catching. There seems to be a lot of [talk] going on about a number of issues, All i can say at leased its not a kill tournament like some... |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Will Schultz - 9/15/2008 9:56 AM
To update my earlier post... there was finally contact between the PMTT and MI-DNR and this is directly from the Basin Supervisor: "After several emails and phone calls I finally got a call back from the tournament organizer. He assured me that he will tell everyone about procedures during the tournament - that fish are not to be held in nets over the side of the boat or in live wells. If a "judge boat" in not there by the time a fish is boated....the anglers are to take a digital photo and release the fish."
If that is what the contestants were instructed to do, I don't see any issues here! |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | sworrall - 9/15/2008 1:44 PM If that is what the contestants were instructed to do, I don't see any issues here! I agree with you BUT... I (and others including the MI-DNR) couldn't get a response from the PMTT. All we had to go on were the printed rules and there is no exception about a sub-legal digitial/paper tournament - the rules state the fish and measurement must be observed by a judge boat. I knew the MI-DNR would not allow a judge boat tournament and all anglers would be in danger of getting ticketed. Seems to me that the organization, before scheduling this tournament, would verify with local governing bodies and publish any exception to the PMTT rules. If this would have been done and/or communicated before the day preceding the tournament it could have saved some confusion and lots of phone calls and e-mails.
Edited by Will Schultz 9/15/2008 1:03 PM
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Posts: 507
| If the contestants were instructed to photograph and immediately release the fish per a DNR directive, then there was no need to further communicate other than courtesy. If indeed the anglers were shooting an image and immediately releasing the fish, they were within the law, correct?
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Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Until Tim Widlacki or a representative of the MNR or MIDNR speaks with MuskieFIRST directly, we are going to close this thread down. At this point the only further discussion on this point is likely to be unfounded accusations or curiosity. |
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| Hey Folks,
I am not going to get into the speculation debate on what and why. We are sending letters and will be waiting for an official response back from the Ministry. Yes, we did contact everyone prior to this event, as we do before every event.
There is nothing in writing because it was done over the phone, only because there isn't even a permit needed to hold a tournament from either agency - MI. DNR or Ministry. Again, the issue was not with the MI DNR, but with the Ministry. Yes, I did talk with Gary Townes and cleared up everything with him before the event. He was great and I actually enjoyed talking with him.
No, the Ministry has NEVER tried to contact the PMTT. I went back and checked old e-mails and even had the web master check and there was never an attempt to contact us. Again, I am not going to speculate why they acted the way they did.
These officers were amazingly ignorant, rude and unbelievably unreasonable. They told everyone that it is against the law to even net and take a picture of a musky if you have a conservation license no matter what the size. Yes, even if it is a legal fish. As a matter of fact, they told anglers that they would have their rigs seized and they would be fined and arrested even if they netted a musky under 44" to take the hooks out. When the anglers asked how would they unhook it took get a measurement to see if it is 44" if they can't net it and the officers told them they don't give a %^&*. If we see you net a fish to unhook it and it's not 44" then we’re taking your rig and arresting you.
Instead of trying to argue with another country and putting our anglers at further risk, we took the best steps we could given the current situation for all of our anglers during the event and made the adjustments for day two. We realize that this didn't please everyone, especially Tom Deitz and his partner and I apologize to all our anglers and will do everything we can, within our power to prevent this from ever happening again.
Yes, we will be posting their response when we receive it. And from what I have been told, that by law they have to respond.
Tim Widlacki
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| i know it's easy to snipe from the sidelines, and i sure don't know any of the details of why the event ran into conflicts with regulation enforcement. however, this clearly isn't the kind of issue that should catch a professional organization by surprise.
Tim Widlaki's information above (which i copied from his post on Musky Hunter's website) indicates that Tim believes the PMTT was adequately prepared ahead of time, but ran into a couple of officers from Canada who made use of scare and intimidation tactics against tournament anglers.
faced with this situation after day 1, he states that the PMTT attempted to adapt mid-tournament and make the best they could of the situation.
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Posts: 507
| REPORT 1:
An angler who fished the event called MuskieFIRST. He reported that there were two MNR Officers on the Canadian water, one to the North, and one to the South. He was stopped by the North MNR officer, and was informed he would not be allowed to hold a sub-legal fish for judge boat measure, and that if he was using a Conservation License (recommended by the PMTT in the Pre-Event Meeting) he would be arrested and lose his rig if he did so. He was also told that the officer felt the PMTT anglers were TARGETING sub legal fish because they were told it was OK to do so by the Tournament promoters (this is an important point in the enforcement possibilities) and with either license option, that activity would be considered illegal and would not be tolerated. Anyone in the event even caught netting a sub legal could be subject to arrest and have all their gear seized. The Officer who stopped our source said that his 'goal was to get someone's boat' that day.
Another important point is some of the Teams not yet qualified for the Championship, which is reported to not yet be full, were indeed looking for any event legal fish (34"), reinforcing the concept sub-legal fish were being 'targeted'.
As was posted earlier today on another thread, a Team was approached by Ministry Officers after calling in a Judge Boat, and was told to immediately release the 36 to 38" fish in the net or they would be subject to arrest. That fish was indeed immediately released and didn't 'count' in the event.
Both Officers told anglers they stopped neither they nor their agency had been consulted as to the legality of holding this event as it was organized. Simply stated, if the contestants wanted to fish Canadian Waters, they had to have a seasonal license to hold a legal fish, and were allowed to register only legal fish. There was no variance issued, according to the officers statements.
It was reported that tournament officials arrived during one of the officer/Angler confrontations and tried to argue the point with the Officers, and the Officers quickly put an end to that conversation.
Adding to the confusion and arguments following the confrontation with Canadian Officers on the water, at a meeting held to discuss the situation Saturday night it was decided that sub-legal fish that were caught before the event was asked to *cease activities on Canadian waters would 'count'. It is apparent from the officer's conversations with the anglers that those fish were not legal to enter as they were not legal to hold at boat-side, and according to the PMTT rules, any angler breaking the law would be DQ'd for the day and possibly removed from the event, fueling objections from some of the Pros to allowing those fish to remain legitimate.
* If a PMTT team wanted to remain on Canadian water, both anglers in the rig had to have Seasonal Licenses and would only be allowed to handle/register fish 44" or larger. |
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