The Surfcaster’s Classic Tournament

By Dave Anderson

I’m a conflicted surfman. On the one hand I love to fish tournaments, I find that they make me fish a hell of a lot harder than usual—but on the other hand I always feel like I’m not respecting the fish when I hang it’s stiff, washed out carcass on the big hook at the weigh-in. I have not joined any of the more famous year-long tournaments because I feel bad enough about extinguishing one big fish never mind five! Some of you might think I’m being a drama mama and in a way I probably am and please don’t mistake this as me trying to get all preachy. I’m not a catch-and-release Nazi, I’m just against the unnecessary killing of big breeder fish. The will to win sometimes overrides our morals as anglers and I do know the feeling of having your personal best in your grasp and not wanting to let her swim away—but it’s better when you do, trust me!
I’ve been working on this tournament concept for over five years, I wanted to add a team aspect to the sport of surf fishing and I wanted to make it possible for striper fishermen to be able to compete and to remove the need for dragging a dead fish to the scales. After a lot of tweaking, re-tweaking, a five day test run and some more tweaking I was finally able to unveil the fruits of my labor earlier this month.
The tournament works on a catch/photo/release concept similar to the Striperthon run here at Surfcastersjournal.com last year. The big differences are that you will be fishing in teams of two and that there are 15 “mini tournaments” or qualifiers of which your team will need to compete in a minimum of six to qualify for the playoffs in the fall. Each week is named for one of our amazing sponsors and the team with the highest five fish score wins a prize package that, for the most part, is either comprised of their products or includes at least something from the sponsor of the week.
So far we have amassed almost $8000 in prizes including a pile of Century Rods, a Van Staal 250, bags from MAK Surfcasting and tops from Stormr. In addition we have plugs from Guppy, Afterhours, Super Strike, J. Stirpe Woodworking, Linesider69 and Couch’s Cedar Works. We also have a myriad of gear, lures and gift certificates from The Saltwater Edge, M&D’s Cape Cod Tackle and Rivers End Tackle. And last but certainly not least we have great support from The Fisherman Magazine, Surfcaster’s Journal and Striped-Bass.com who are helping us get the word out.
Some other things that will make The Surfcaster’s Classic unlike any tournament you’ve ever fished are the regular updates and the angler stats. The updates will be made several times per day throughout the duration of each qualifier tournament so you’ll be able to follow the progress of your team and of the teams that are challenging your spot at the top! The stats will allow you to track your effectiveness in seven categories and these stats may help you win the coveted MVP award. It’s going to be a whole new tournament experience and it’s going to be a blast I can promise you that.
For those of you who prefer to fish alone or if you just don’t have a fishing partner that can keep up with you. We have a secondary tournament that runs right alongside the Surfcaster’s Classic. The Coast-Wide Cow Hunt is for individual anglers and there are categories for boat and surf. The rules are very much the same as the Classic but it’s just your three biggest fish of the season added up to create your score. There are monthly big fish prizes in this event and the top four anglers in each category win great prizes, the top prize for the Surf Category is a Van Staal 250, second place nets a Century surf rod, third bags a Stormr Typhoon Top and fourth, well, fourth gets a box of Twinkies! Yep, you read that right.
To read up on exactly how the whole thing works visit www.gotight.net. Entry into The Classic is $60 per two-man team and includes free entry into the Cow Hunt for each angler, the Cow Hunt cost $25 per angler—everyone who enters gets a free tournament t-shirt. I hope you’ll all join up and maybe we can change the face of amateur competitive fishing—catch and release is the only way to go.