The 2010 Cats Incredible Tournament will be held Saturday, July 31 and Sunday, August 1. On-line application forms should be available towards the end of January or the beginning of February. I'll post more as I know more. I hope that everyone reading this will try to enter the 150 team field.
I'd like to address some of the negatives about the Cats Incredible Tournament that have been posted on Montana Cats. I welcome any criticism about the tournament because it's one of the ways that I know what you guys are thinking. I was disappointed, though, by the lack of response we got from the questionaire I sent all of the 2009 participants asking for ideas about how to improve the Cats Incredible Tournament. Please call me any time at 701-740-1749 or email me at kpkyllo@yahoo.com if you have ideas you'd like to share. I'm very open to new ideas.
For those of you that don't like the no culling rule, it simply can't be changed. It's the law on the Red River. To deter culling in 2010 though, we are putting in place 2X thorough daily livewell checking (inches and numbers of fish) of randomly selected boats. In a hot spot? We'll wait till the bite slows or you move to check your boat. Team numbers will be drawn randomly each day. You'd better have a great explanation if you're still fishing with 5 fish in your livewell too! Teams caught cheating will be banned for life.
The weigh-in process greatly needs improving and we recognize that. We are still tossing around several ideas, but the health of the fish will be addressed in next years tournament much more so that in the past. It's still not going to be perfect, so please have patience.
The boat unloading process will be improved on the south end by the 2011 tournament, we hope. We lobbied MN DNR for a new boat ramp and it was approved and put on the list. It'll be a double wide ramp and in theory, should cut unloading and loading times in half. Where to put boats along the shore when in the water will probably still remain a problem. The constant flooding on the Red River really prohibits doing much to improve the shoreline.
The payouts may be low as some of you are suggesting and we'll take a good, hard look at changing payouts for the 2011 tournament. Contrary to popular belief, the Cats Incredible Tournament is not a big money maker for the Chamber of Commerce, as I once believed myself. I was recently in front of the Grand Forks City Council requesting a donation for tournament sponsorship and they straightout told me that we should raise our entry fees instead. Well, we aren't raising entry fees this year, but they had a strong argument. The popularity of the Cats Incredible Tournament is at an all time high with the 150 team tournament filled easily on the first day we accepted entries and we ended up with 36 teams on the waiting list. The entries for the majority of the waiting list were also received on the first day. If payouts were too low, would the tournament be as popular as it is?
The last thing I'll address is the bag of goodies that we hand out when teams register. I agree. It stinks and we'll make every attempt that we can to improve it. I think the dated t-shirts are a great idea too. We'll try to have more clothing available this year.
Please let me know what you are all thinking.
Have a Merry Christmas!
Karry Kyllo 2010 Cats Incredible Committee Chairman
My dad & I have talked and I think
we'll do the League Tourny this year to make up for it but it is really a tough decision., it really is!
