can anyone explain to me why the next bud light tournament on limestone has three divisions fishing same tournament? isn't that why we choose certain divisions to fish in?

Probably so you will get a decent turn out to make it worth your gas money. 25 boat divisions seems to be the new normal with the over saturation of new tournaments.

They have some combined tournaments to increase turnout as well as help out the tournament directors. We have 2 or 3 combined tournaments in the Sherman district too. Your points still count towards your district AOY.

More teams, more money, same points, and less gas. They've been doing it several years and it works pretty well.

Whitney paid 11 spots. Would have been less if Ft Worth fished it separately than Waco/Belton.

Nitro man Z7,

I can answer your question. We are constantly talking with the anglers who enter our tournaments. The input we receive is what determines what we do in future tournaments.

* In 2012 and 2013 anglers told us they wanted to fish for more money
1) Our response in 2013 was to combine some divisions on the same lake on the same day and keep the division points separate but combine the division teams to increase the payout. The anglers told us they liked this concept.
2) Our response in 2014 was to combine more divisions in 2014 so that we could offer this idea to other divisions when possible.
3) In 2014, we also reduced the number of Texas BLT divisions from 20 in 2013 to 16. This helped to increase participation in the divisions near the ones we did not provide in 2014.
4) In 2014, we also raised the entry fee from $160 to $200 because this has a dramatic impact on the total payouts but has little impact on the individual anglers (only $20 per angler).

We only do this when a lake we select to combine divisions is in close proximity to the lakes in each division schedule.

Please feel free to contact our TD's or PM me if you would like to ask more questions or have us clarify something for you.

We appreciate your interest in our Tournaments,

USA FT staff

Thanks for input