CT Outfitters SEASON long ice tournament

Yep, you read it right Connecticut Outfitters is hosting a season long ice tournament! There is no, none, zero, zilch, nada entry fee. We have categories for pike, walleye, trout, bass, crappie and perch. The will be prizes for the winners of every division. We have shanties, augers, an Ice Armor suit, tip ups, Polar Vision sonars and more to give away. Every time you enter a fish, your name is entered in the grand prize drawing, which at the moment is a Frabill shanty. The more entries you have, the better your chances of winning the grand prize are.

There are some rules but for them and all the details, check out the 2007 Ice Tournament page

Oh yea Baby!!! This is the best Tournie!!

Blaine and Gary - Thanx for putting this together it will make the Ice Season just a little better...

You will have to do better than that 37"-er Jack!! :p

Very nice Blaine !!

Really, wow ya might make me keep some fish to fry up this year. See If I can take down the division :p
Cool nice job Connecticut Outfitters

Hey Blaine,

Are you in the tournament??? I hope not.... :p :p

And weigh in is during business hours of the store correct? Fish do not have to be alive, in fact they can be frozen solid? :rolleyes: Its on!

John, don't bother with the division, got my eye on that too .

Great Idea but,Don't kill the bass

I'm going to be working on them big candy perch myself

Waycor... No, employees are not included in the contest :p

Skipperj9... Live or frozen, it doesn't matter.

very cool.. hopefully i'll have a couple trout and to make on the board with . what a great idea!!! free nonetheless.!!! how can it be any better. Gotta love CT outfitters..

We may be updating the prize list very soon! I made a few phone calls yesterday and got some great interest from some companies out there... We are rapidly approaching $3,000 in prizes

No way to photo the fish on a measuring board and toss them back? Won't all the bass people get upset of 20+" bass being kept!? Granted you'd lose the ability to compete in the tie breaker for weight.

My wifes' gonna flip when she hears I'm in a season long ice tourny!!!!!
"I'll be home in March honey!"

Il personally be fishing alot around blaines area, il rig up a cooler in the truckbed and return all the fish. Bass mite be pushing it and I dont think id kill a pike but waley and trout mmmmmmmm.

BTW- this is a very noble/generous thing you are doing! BRAVO

We thought about that for quite a while and we feel we settled on the method that made the least impact on any species. We all know that once ice sets it won't take long to see bass over the 20" mark... That bar should be raised quickly. We will have a continually updated leader board, everyone in our shop knows how to make the necessary changes to our web site so the leader board will reflect the most up to date info as soon as a fish comes in the door.

What this means is that the night before you hit the ice, you can look at the site and see that for instance a 23" fish is in the lead, this means that you don't need to bring in the 22" fish you just landed. Take your pictures, kiss your fish and release it.While on the ice, if there are any questions, you can call the shop anytime during business hours (we are open 7 days a week) and find out what size is leading each category.

Is this a perfect system? No... We came up with this tournament to get the whole family involved, not just the hard core guys. We believe that the benefits to the fishing community outweigh the slight impact this might have on any species listed in our tournament.

Well said and well thought out! Check it the night before everyone and everything is happy! Looking forward to it, if we ever get any ice!! The ocean is colder than the lakes down here!!! and nothing in site!

Well make sure Dave doesn't bring in a big crappie that has been sitting in his freezer all year. :p

That makes sense on the bass issue, just keep your eye on the board and if ya get something under let it go.

Ok Paul it's on. :p

I could be talked into a few of those trips as well. Even though I am a crappie man by nature.

I see the bar has already been set at 12.5" for .

Hey... Anyone want a Scout Aqua-Vu????? That just got added to the list of prizes

As an overall prize or the sunfish category :p :rolleyes:

Is there any rules against entering fish caught in private ponds?

Great idea with the call in for info on the leader board if you didn't get as chance to log on to see the rankings.

Blaine, Can I place another order with you? I need 4" of black ice in CT by Xmas. Would this be a problem :p .

Buckcall... I think I can pull it off. Where in CT would you like it delivered to? Shipping may be a tad expesive but I'll look into it and get back to you.

Fisbuster, as long as all CT angling laws and the posted tournament rules are followed, then yes, a private pond is acceptable.

Wow this is cool thanks Blaine and whoever was involved to make this possible. I'm in, Now where the heck is the ice?

Eric

Whats the first place prize an all expense paid trip to icefish at lake of the woods in minnesota? lol i wish. :p

If your fish meets the minimum length requirement, but will not surpass the leading fish, would it still count as an entry toward the grand prize? If so, could this be a picture and release fish? I'm thinking if I go out and catch a 21" trout, but a 23" trout is leading would it need to be measured and weighed for an entry? Or does an entry only count if it surpasses the leading fish?

Yes, it would still count as an entry to the Grand Prize drawing but the fish must be brought to the shop... It sounds silly but we need to get SOMETHING out of this. We have nearly $3000 in prizes with NO ENTRY FEE, I'd kinda like to see some increased traffic at the shop

No problem Blaine . . . I'll just have to fish over your way a little more. Hopefully you have ice over there this year. 40" pike here I come, HA , I haven't even caught one over 30" out of 25 through the in my first ice fishing season.

Looks like we're going to have to jam this tourney once we get 2 inches... once we get ice, there wont be any posts for a week... no one will come home, i can see it now, tents and shantys all over the place...

Starting to look the first one's in the clubhouse might hold up. Can I bring in a fish if I'm sitting on my cooler when I catch it.
I'll come to the shop.

Blaine, Just have it dropped off at weathtersfield cove. This way I don't have a long drive with my entries, but I will be making the at least one long hall with the winning yellow perch from candy if it ever freezes up. Might even bring you one of them monster Pike from Lilli.

That beats floating a tip up out on a block of ice with a hole in it. A fish caught this way does meet the requirements of "Through the ice in CT waters!!! :rolleyes: pray for the blizzard of 07. -gb

We are still receiving prizes for the tournament. I just opened a box full of Jack Traps

Just what I needed to get back out there and put this house remod on hold....

Blaine, just say i get a 13 inch crappie mid week but cant get it into the shop until weekend. Could I fillet it and just bring the rak into the shop of does the fish have to bee in its intirety??

You could.... But you'd lose in a tie breaker based on the weight of the fish. I suspect yours would be a little lighter if filleted out :p

lol

Freeze it whole and filet if after weigh-in, upon defrosting.

I'm getting a runtime error when trying to get onto Outfitters site.

My computer or yours Gary ?

No, it's on our end... We've been down for a couple of hours now. I need to update the leader board! We have a new leader in the crappie division as of 6 tonight!

The board is updated, photos will be posted later today...

Hey Paul D did you dust off your crappie stuff?

Sh!t, I gotta go catch some more fish

What lake did that Walleye come from, Gardner?

Yes, they have to tell us... But we don't have to tell YOU :p PM sent...

No problem. I respect people wanting to keep their spots private. Just didn't know if it was going to be public knowledge or not after they register.

Bass are yummy, especially this time of year! Nothing wrong with keeping it as long as it isn't wasted.

Looks like there was finally a pike weighed in! Still no trout though?

I'll be in this week with a new leader for the pike division. I want that suite .

Come on guys get off your butts and start bring in some fish to the scales at Ct Outfitters. This is a great free contest that the guys put together for us, We should support them by flooding the scales with some nice fish.

Whats the biggest crappie weighted in so far

Kenny, check out the leader board
CT-Outfitters.com

We've had some damned nice fish weighed in over the last few days... A bass just under 7lbs and one walleye over 5 and another over 6. So far, the only trout entered is just over 4 lbs.

You're running out of time and ice! :p

Huskybass and I each had slab crappie over 16" on Sunday. His was a monster at 18" and around 2 lbs!!

Never thought of the tournament until they were filleted.....

Greg S called you guys to bring it in. Even left Husky a message.

18" is more like 3#

Jon..Nice slab!!

Where the bass come out of?

great crappie jon and mike

Yeah, didn't weigh them but they were big!

Oh well....

God, 18" crappie. Did you guys take any pictures?

In talking to Huskybass today I stand corrected....Mike's fish was under 17" on the tape at home. My estimation of the length was off, but it was still a really good fish.Here's a pic:

[img]http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f98/Huskybass/Marchice002.jpg?t=1173217971[/img]

Holy crap slab
Im catching pike... but they keep getting smaller. Hopefully it'll pay off tomorrow...

ok maybe a cocky question...but with ice-out nearing or here, i'll shoot the question...when will prize pick-up and drawing be done...i know i will be in the shop saturday for the pike seminar if that helps

That would work fine!

IS there gonna be a catfish category next year? I dont know much about um but I have a feelign that my 34" cat may have qualififed for the leader board.

The Connecticut Outfitters season long ice tournament is a wrap. The winners have been posted on our website... The Grand Prize drawing will be held tomorrow at our pike seminar

Thanks to all who entered fish. We will definitely be doing this again next season, hopefully with some even better prizes. While it wasn't a requirement, we asked all who weighed fish in to donate $2 per fish for A Sporting Chance youth program. You all helped to raise a good chunk of change for the kids

Congrats to all the winners


Nice job CT Outfitters ,you guys came up with some really great prizes

Are you going to do a season long open water tourny

Stay tuned Mike

1st - 3rd places are done and today at the pike seminar, we piulled the winners of all the general drawings.


The winner of the Grand Prize drawing for the Frabill Trekker Shanty was Kevin Czarnecki

Tom Doty won a StrikeMaster Polar Vision Hand Held Sonar

John Stopka won the 6” Lazer hand auger

Ethan Kloehn won the 6” Mora hand auger

Tom Godbout won a Jack Trap

Scott Hare won an Epixor EF10 spinning reel

Dave Lavigne won an On The Water DVD and hat

Dan Kornesay won an Okuma hat and shirt

Carl Kulesa won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

Adam Romegialli won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

Brad Koschel won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

Rich Latorve won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

Eric Muir won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

Dave Grant won a StrikeMaster Bait Puck and hat

6 Frabill Sit-N-Fish buckets
Jacques Dulac
Joe Pucci
Justin Giglio
Roman Saturski
Ryan Crowley
Judd Landon