There are a couple different "big bass" tournaments being talked about lately. So we don't get confused, here's the break down.

1. WON Bass is going to hold three tournaments on Clear Lake in the summer of 2008. Two 'swimbait only' tournaments, and one 'frog only' tournament. Rules for these tournaments have not been set yet. Bill Cook who started this thread is the tournament director who is putting the tournaments on. If you've fished WON, you know that Bill is a highly regarded tournament director who has been running the Central Coast and Golden Valley regions for many years.

details: http://www.wonbass.com/team/results/clear_lake_summer/index.html

2. The Heavyweight Bass Classic is January 25th at Lake Casitas. 50 guys fishing, 50 observers. One fish, winner take all for the biggest bass. Normal tournament rules apply and there are no special lure restrictions. Ron Cervenka is putting this tournament on. Ron is the WON Bass Southern California team tournament director, and has been for many, many years.

details: http://www.huddlestondeluxe.com/generic71.html

3. On January 26th at Lake Don Pedro, Robert Mansor who is an ABA team tournament director is putting on a 'swimbait only' event. I don't know a lot about event, though I would have loved to fish if I wasn't going to be at the H.B.C. the day before. Entry is $515 per team.

details: http://www.americanbass.com/swimbait_flyer.htm


The point of this thread is for Bill Cook to get ideas from you, the swimbait junkies of California, on how to set up the rules for his swimbait only event. Making a post saying something like "who cares how they catch them" doesn't help here because it's already set that it's going to be a swimbait only tournament. The only part that remains to be determined is the rules about what can and can't be used.

The only similar events I can recall in the past were the Snag Proof Open's aka "The Frog Tournament", where baits had to be snag proof baits. That was a lot easier to define what was allowed or not allowed, but still there was griping about people trying to stretch the rules or whatever.

In any case, what helps here is the solid discussion above, with suggestions from some great sticks like Urban, PHISHnutS, magmaster, bassindon, deepsessions, Mattlures, and swim-bait.com.

After lunch at Quiznos (which was nice) an idea that came to mind is this... What if the only lures allowed were baits listed in the review section of calfishing.com :) If the bait you want to use isn't in there, you have to get pictures of the lure to me, or send me the lure! heh.

More seriously, I liked the length restriction idea(sorry Matt). From an on the water policing point of view I think that would be much easier to enforce. If your bait isn't making a grande sized splash when it hits the water, something is up :o

I think you have your work cut out for you Bill. I hope you continue to get some good ideas here.