They only take 150 boats. They have allways filled Aimstad and the pay was close to the same. Just search back

Personally, I think the payout are decent. Lets compare to Bass Champs.

Bass Champs w/ 150 boats (ref Lake Belton on June 6th)
Expenses:
$280 entry fee
$75 truck gas
$100 boat gas
$75 hotel
Winnings:
10th place finish with 150 boats pays $650
4th place finish with 150 boats pays $1000
Only 20 boats get a check
This means you profit $120 for a top 10 and $470 for a top 5. Let's not forget you now have to spit that with a partner.

Everstart with 150 boats
$1000 entry fee
$150 truck gas
$200 boat gas
$225 hotel
Winnings:
10th place finish with 150 boats pays $3000
4th place finish with 150 boats pays $9000
50 boats get a check
This means you profit $1425 for a top 10 and $7425 for a top 5. And you get it all!

Both are very good trails, but I am not sure how you can say the payout of Bass Champs is way better than that of Everstart. If you can beat 1 in 3, you at least get your money back. In my opinion, Bass Champs is one of the toughest tournaments to get a top 10 in. You typically have two very good local anglers pulling their knowledge together about a lake they know very well.

Your not going to spend a week on amistad and only spend $150 in truck gas and $200 boat gas... I just wondered if there was going to be some additional incentive pay other than owning a ranger. Champs top ten pay is terrible as well vs 200 boats so I wasn't comparing it to that.

Excellent breakdown Matthew.

There are other plus sides to FLW
1). You get to make a lot of new friends and see old friends at each tournament
2). Awesome staff and a great tournament director that really cares about all the fishermen
3). Chance to go fish the in the national championship tourney
4). Chance to qualify for the Forrest Wood Cup
5). Tournaments are spread out across the state to help decrease the odds of locals winning on their home lakes.
6). Awesome media exposure by FLW Outdoors magazine to help possibly get sponsorships

#1 reason to fish the Everstarts,,,,,,, it's a lot of fun with a lot of great guys and gals fishing in it.

First of all I did not compare everstart with basschamps. Secondly you have under estimated the expenses for the pro. Most of them will spend 4 days to a week prefishing your expenses don't even come a close to what it really is. Thirdly I am talking about filling every event not just the first one. I know a lot of the guys that fish everstart and I know for a fact that this is a big concern and It has been expressed to Ron numerous times

You're right JR...... I went through $100 worth of gas every day prefishing. You have to if you want to see all the lake.

Well I suggest to anyone wanting to fish it be ready to enter the day they start taking entrys. Or you might just find yourself on a waiting list

Waiting list for co-anglers because they won't have enough pros that sign up except maybe the first event

Looks sweet

I think I might give these a shot this year as a co. Anybody else think it would be better to enter all or just a few? Would it be better to link?

If I was u I would enter all of them, I think u would have a better chance of getting n that way or I would find a pro to link up with.

As Mr. Hag said, the most important reason most everybody on this forum does the tournament thing is to have fun, touch base with old friends, and meet new faces.

I fish the boater side and usually travel with two if not three coanglers. This is the ticket to saving money as well as increasing the experience. Sometimes it is tight quarters, but we try to carpool all in one vehicle, cram as many into one hotel room as possible, and eat sandwiches as needed. In the end, no single person is out a full tank of gas, we can usually find a hotel for $20 each per night, and a few pounds on lunch meat with a loaf of bread go a very long way. Before gas prices went up, I would just bring my truck camper and three of us would stay in that.

I hope we can get a few more interested next year. As several have pointed out, the key is to fill up the fields regardless of the trail.

That's for sure ......

Who do you want to draw ? And Why ?

when is regisrtaion for ranger owners