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https://www.facebook.com/beaversbendkaya...e=1&theater

Thanks for everything Jeff!

I hated to miss it. Looks like a great event for a great cause. Congrats to Robbie and Matt.

Congrats guys!!! Thats awesome!!!

You had to be there to see the final awards presentation. It was a thrill a second if you were watching, it must have been pure hell to be involved. Totally understandable with two judges looking at every fish picture caught by 76 folks and entering each and every fish. This is what happened: Standing in line to turn in photos, each persons fish pics were checked and scored before the next person in line could submit his/hers. It took well over an hour, probably closer to two hours or more. Word travels fast and the folks I was talking to figured Robbie had won with Matt second early on. When it came time to make the final official announcements: They said it was a tie between Robbie and Matt and that Matt won the tiebreaker with bigger fish. Applause, gasp, complete surprise to many including myself. Matt gets picture made with check, then the announcement of Big Fish for tournament and again Matt's name announced with winner getting Ride 115. Complete surprise again as a lot of folks knew that an 18 incher had been caught. Results disputed, back in to trailer to check pics again...change in awards.

Robbie winner
Matt second
Brent Wilson third
And some dude that went into shock of not getting big bass award finally recognized as the winner of wildy 115x.

It was a crazy ending, but other than that final glitch, the tournament was organized and run very well in my opinion.

I can only imagine the nightmare of scoring that many anglers.
Sounds like it went pretty smooth for their first one and with such a huge turnout!

We hate that the snafu at the end occurred, believe me we made every attempt to prevent such a thing from happening. You are correct, score that many fish with two sets of eyes as efficiently as possible and there is bound to be a mistake possible. For a first year event we feel it was a success given that was the only glitch. We are not perfect but make every attempt to be correct in the end and that is the reason there is a protest procedure in place. We want to be correct regardless of how much chaos there is. It was a strange occurrence of data entry that resulted in the final standing snafu and I will take full responsibility. I'll also take responsibility for making sure it was corrected and each angler received the correct prize. I hope everyone had a blast and it will only grow from here, we learn from our mistakes and always look for ways to improve so each year gets better. Just remember, everyone took home their prize the day of the event, we were not still paying the prizes out a year later as some big tournaments do. So, in the end I think it was a success.

Matt, I couldn't feel worse for having to give you a New Hobie Outback. I know that was a blow after the excitement at first!

Jeff

Jeff, don't let my post come off the wrong way. I totally understand and I'm incredibly grateful for the job you guys did running the event It's not the first time this has happened to me during a tournament and I'm sure it won't be the last. I'm totally looking forward to spending some time on the water with you sometime in the future.

We had a great time! When will we see the drone footage?