The Official Southtowns Walleye Association Tournament Dates are June 9th through 17th, 2018
It has come to the attention of the Tournament Committee that there have been many questions and rumors regarding the upcoming 2018 tournament and the changes that have been implemented this year.
This article will answer many of these questions that you may have. Firstly we will list the changes and or improvements that have been made and then explain them in detail below.
Changes and or improvements made in 2018 versus 2017:
1st - Increased the tournament entry fee by $15.00 (Change)
2nd - Increased Cash Payouts by 68 percent (Improvement)
3rd - Weigh station locations (Change)
4th - Existing Calcutta and the addition of a new Calcutta (Change/Improvement)
5th - Corporate Days (Change)
The $15.00 increase in the tournament fee. Why was this implemented? The tournament committee wanted to increase the payouts to participants versus the payouts that had been in place for years, this small increase and sponsor monies we obtained were able to make this happen and quite substantially. We know you feel $15.00 dollars is a big jump, but when you look below and see the increases that your money went towards, we didn't increase it by that much to hit these prize values and it is still less than the price of 2 lures.
We have had a 68% increase in the total cash payouts for 2018, this in itself is a great improvement over previous tournaments, and as you can see we increased them all substantially through all places, not just the top end.
This gives you a side by side comparison of this year’s payouts and last year’s payouts, not bad.
Weigh stations location changes. After looking at the number of fish brought in at each station in previous years and the number of people required to man each location we have decided to close the Small Boat Harbor and Sturgeon Point weigh stations and in doing so we will be opening the Southtowns Walleye Clubhouse as a weigh station, which will be open from 2pm until 8pm every day. This was done in order to get people out fishing the tournament more often, for example after work or school and still be able to weigh in your catch without having to wait until the following day.
We will still be keeping Barcelona and Cattaraugus Creek weigh stations open, but we are changing the hours from 2pm to 5pm daily. These new hours will let our volunteers be able to fish longer each day and not have to get in as early to get to the stations and setup. Also, we are working on opening a Dunkirk weigh station, but are still in the process of finalizing the details, and we will keep you posted as soon as we receive confirmation.
Calcutta's. Another change and improvement will be on the 3 day Calcutta, We will be adding the last Sunday of the tournament onto this Calcutta and the price will increase from $30.00 to $40.00. This Calcutta will still continue to pay the top 3 heaviest walleyes for each day on Sat. June 9th, Sun. June 10th, Sat. June 16th and Sun. June 17th. This Calcutta will continue to be a 90% payout and is sponsored by C. Guenther Deck Restorations.
The next improvement is the addition of the 9 day, 100% payout Calcutta sponsored by Curly's Grill and Banquet Center on Ridge Rd., Lackawanna N.Y. This Calcutta will cost $100.00 and will run for the full 9 days of the tournament and as mentioned above this is a 100 percent payout.
This Calcutta will pay the top 5 heaviest Walleyes of the 9 days of the tournament. (NOT 5 PER DAY). You will also be able to enter more than 1 walleye in this Calcutta (Example: If you enter the 1st heaviest walleye on one day and say the 5th heaviest on a preceding day, you will win both payouts). This Calcutta has the potential to payout more than the main tournament, with the possibility for you to go home with over $10,000 in cash. Why? Because you are just as lucky as the next guy, and all it takes is that One Fish. So get in on the Calcutta’s today. You too can Be In It to Win It.
Corporate Days - Let me start out by saying there will be 2 corporate sponsors each day this year, however the change comes from this - You will know all of the sponsors, but you will not know what day they will be sponsoring until the close of the tournament on Sunday June 17th. The sponsor names will be randomly drawn and placed on a day during the picnic, so it will be important this year to make sure you mark down sponsor product that you used on your weigh slips accordingly.
So there you have it, these are the current changes and improvements we have made to the 34th Annual Southtowns Walleye Tournament 2018 our general rules have stayed the same except for a few word clarifications. We will keep you updated on the progress of the tournament plans through our monthly publication the FishLine, website (www.southtownswalleye.org) and Facebook page along with our general membership meetings.
Also we would like to inform all of our members and non-members that we are now able to accept credit cards at the club and pay-pal on our website for membership and tournament sign-ups, so don’t delay on getting in for those early bird prizes.
Thank You to our Tournament Committee for all of their hard work and dedication so far to making this an Epic Tournament.
Rob Kroh
Tournament Chairman
Jim Skoczylas
Tournament Co-Chairman
2018 Southtowns Walleye Association Tournament Sponsor Information
If you desire information on sponsoring the 2018 STWA Walleye Tournament,
please contact us at: [email protected]
