Anyone notice how well TXTT, TTO, and Basschamps are drawing this year? These folks do it right!

All top 5 places were won by Rayburn locals.

Champs and txtt are very well run trails.

I don't fish a whole lot of tournaments but I've fished some basschamps and they run a great tournament from my experience. I like the 5 day off limits before the event. I've also fished some media and it's good also. They do allow prefishing leading up to the tournament day but only if you have prepaid for the tournament. I think champs has it right.

I'm just waiting for them to come to Lewisville so I can Jackpot it.

One of the problems as I see it is there are way too many tournament trails in the DFW and East Texas area. If you look there are 3 to 4 tournaments every weekend on every major lake in the area and there aren't enough fishermen to cover all of them. Simple supply and demand. Gas has gotten cheaper but entry fees haven't, hotel rooms haven't, and bass boats dang sure haven't.

You can't complete to win against someone who lives on a lake and fishes only that lake. At best in these tournaments you are fishing for points accumulation toward a year end Championship that has a good chance of being held somewhere the jack potters aren't so prevalent.

There is no doubt there have been some major goofs by some of the tournament operators, but the competition for the limited number of anglers is what is hurting the trails.

Make the yearly entry fee high enough (all to go toward the year end championship) and the tournament fees low enough (not enough money to draw the jack potters) and you may have a winning formula.

^^^^^^ No

Shot themselves in the foot, lost angler interest.

There are obviously a lot of haters out there. Thanks for your comments... even the bad ones.

We have made a lot of mistakes over the years, and we take responsibility for them. We are also "paying for them" as one put it.

The $500 entry fee did not work this year. It will not be back. Changing rules, off limits, lakes, etc, is a bad thing and it won't happen again unless there is an act of God.

I am sorry to the two or three people that took time off of work and were planning on fishing this. I told you this when I called you, but I understand your desire to express your anger, dissatisfaction, and whatever else you want on the forum. I am embarrassed by this.

That is all I am going to say on the forum. If you would like to discuss anything, my number is below.

Bash away...

My two cents.....
Basschamps, Media, Texas Team Trail, JC outdoors, BLT, the list goes on and on.......

All of these trails put on tournaments to make money. It's a business, Period! Yeah some trails fit some people better than others, some people like other trails better than others but at the end of the day.....Its a business. If you owned a business and we going to lose money if you sold your product for less than cost, you wouldn't be in business long. I get it!

They made a business decision so they can continue to provide a trail for guys that like to fish their trail.

THIS!

I think we need a state-wide, high entry, high payout, series only fisherman, and 1-day practice like TTT.

TTZ draw not to shabby either, the market it pretty saturated IMO.

You aren't gonna ever get rid of jackpoters unless you go pro

This...

If the payout is good, there will always be jackpotters. The entry will never be high enough. Practice days or not, jackpotters still will pay to play.

Bull. If PTT had required all four tournaments paid in full up front, a bunch of the jackpotters would never have played. They may have only had 50 teams instead of 100, but they would still have had a trail.

I agree.