wmarchant's blog

Our tournament at Loch Raven reservoir on 10/6/18 brings our regular season to a close, leaving only the TOC (Tournament of Champions), and our Icebreaker Open tournament.
Twenty three teams competed on 10/6/18. Loch Raven was a little tough for all contenders but 9 of our 23 competing teams were able to fill their 5-fish limit. The team of Eric Holmes and J. R. Eaton were the champions with a fine 17.27 pound limit of five bass. Craig Gordon and Holden Wolfe earned second place with a nice limit weighing 16.03 pounds, propelling them to a points tie for Anglers of the year with Waino Anderson and Ron Wolfe. Capturing third place honors was the team of Kevin Hollasch and Jon Miller, with a 15.53 pound limit. The largemouth lunker, weighing 4.55 pounds was cought by the team of Larry Bertholdt and Ian Walker. The smallmouth lunker was a behemoth weighing .88 pounds weighed in by Carl Devor.
Thanks to Holden Wolfe, Bobby Standiford, and Max Marchant, for all of the help in tourney preparations, check-in and weigh-in. Thanks to Matt Elliott for securing valuable rod and reel donations from Lews corporation, that will be used as club prizes. Special thanks to all those who helped through the year. As always, an additional thanks to our sponsor Anglers Express. We truly appreciate the support!

Some may wonder why we have so many rules that govern our tournaments. The answer is pretty simple. Our rules are designed to protect anglers, protect the integrity of our competition, and to protect the fish we catch. The rules are strict, but they are fair.
One benefit of our rules is demonstrated by our extraordinarily low fish mortality rate. As of this writing, we have completed 4 tournaments in the 2018 season. 380 fish have been brought to our weigh-ins. I am pleased to report that, 378 of those fish were released alive and well, and only 2 fish died while in the possession. That is a mortality rate of .00526 (approximately 1/2 of 1 percent.)
One important feature of our rules is the reliance on our members in the policing of these rules. A rules infraction, that is witnessed by a member, must be reported within 30 minutes after completion of a tournament weigh-in, after which the board has procedures to deal with appropriate penalties, if any penalties are to be assessed.