Doesnt really matter to me, I plan on winning them all in 2012!! lol

Doesn't matter to me either but that sounds like a perfect plan!

Assuming we have ten boaters and used a 10+1 point system, would that extra point be acceptable to all as being a participation point? For example, the winner gets 10+1 points, 2nd place gets 9+1...those who attend but don't catch anything get 1 point while those who don't attend get 0 points.

Just throwing this out there after wondering about something and forgive me in advance Rob for giving you another headache *smile*. Say there are 5 tournaments and three guys don't catch anything at all for the first four tournaments. They are ranked in the bottom three of club standings and one of them is me! :-) Under a 10+1 point system one guy will have 4 points while another has 3 because he missed one tournament. The third guy has 2 points because he missed two tournaments. None of them caught a fish so they are tied for last place while participation points basically helps apply a better rank to those who put forth more effort. I can totally respect that.

Let's say all three of those guys catch a single fish during the fifth and final tournament. The guy who had 2 points ranks 4th in the final tournament (worth 8 points) so he now has 10 points. The guy who had 3 points ranks 5th (worth 7 points) so he now has 10 points. The guy who had 4 points ranks 6th (worth 6 points) so he now has ten points. All three guys are still in the bottom of club standings but they are tied up at ten points each. Since big bass breaks ties we can now rank them according to their actual fishing results rather than effort applied. Technically, this is fair because tournament points are supposed to help rank anglers according to their skills rather than their participation rates. In this kind of example the outcome would have been the same even without participation points being awarded.

However, in another kind of example it could work out differently. Let's say all three of those guys catch a single fish during the fifth and final tournament. The guy who had 2 points ranks 4th in the final tournament (worth 8 points) so he now has 10 points. The guy who had 4 points ranks 5th (worth 7 points) so he now has 11 points. The guy who had 3 points ranks 6th (worth 6 points) so he now has 9 points. Clearly the 11-point guy who caught 1 fish over four days of fishing is not better than the guy who caught a larger fish over two days of fishing, but he gained a club rank over a better angler simply because he attended more tournaments. Would we all be ok with that?

Matt,

Participation points don't work the way you described them, let me explain.

If you have 100 points to allocate and 25 participation points, 3 of 5 catch fish so they get 100, 99 and 98 respectively, the two that didn't catch anything get 25 points.  Those that didn't show up get zero.

Participation points only apply to those that fish and don't weighin.

hth,

Ross

That makes more sense Ross, thanks.

I'm happy with whatever the "Ross" decides.
And like Tom's solution the best!

Lets just fish and call it good. Speaking of which, I know the schedule is tentative but are the dates set? Trying to bounce it against other things.