Big Stone Open tournament qualifying questions.

[Billy Brenton]

I have had lots of anglers calling and asking about the Open tournament coming up on May 17th, 18th, 19th at Big Stone…the question has been about the top 20 placing teams qualifying for the Princecraft Championship on Devils Lake, ND. Maybe this will clear it up…we will be taking 20 teams from the Open tournament based on their finish….if a team has qualified from the Division tournaments we will go to the next highest placing teams…we have forty teams at this time signed up to fish, and out of the forty teams, seventeen teams are trying to qualify for the championship by only fishing Big Stone….at this time all seventeen teams will qualify because the rest of the field will qualify in the two divisions……..so if you and your partner would like a shot at the $50,000 first place prize at the championship your odds of qualifying are good at Big Stone…..I would also like to let all the Yar-Craft boat owners know that Yar-Craft has put up a free entry fee to one of the next three tournaments for the highest placing Yar-Craft boat in the tournament. If you have any questions please call me at the office 307-472-9887 or you can get an entry form on line at www.westernwalleye.com

Billy Brenton
Director
Lowrance sponsored Pro Team Walleye Circuit

[walleyes133]

Is the entry for the championship still $2000.00?

[Curious]

Will the D.L. Championship be an open tourney like last year (field included many teams that didn't take part in circuit events) or will interested fishermen have to qualify through one of the circuit tourneys? That would be a great time to be at Devils Lake and no doubt will be a well run tourney..

[Billy B]

Yes the entry is still $2000. With the new payout the only way that a team can fish the championship is to qualify by placing in the top forty in the division, placing in the top 20 from the teams that are only fishing the open at Big Stone, and by fishing both league tournaments in Wyoming and placing in the top five. If we have teams that pass on the championship, or extra spots open , we will then invite the teams that failed to qualify but fished three tournaments, and then the teams that fish two tournaments, and the teams that fished both tournaments in the league . We have a much lager pool of teams to fill the championship then we had last season and my hope is that we will fill or be close to filling with the teams that have committed to the circuit…..we will NOT be inviting teams that didn’t fish our circuit to the championship…Last season I had to get to 55 teams based on the number of paying places….Yes this was a mistake…out of the five teams that fished our championship (and some cashing big checks) only one team has entered the circuit this year….We have a check for $50,000 for first place and then we will pay the top 36% of the field the rest of the money. If I have not made it clear please call me at my office 307-472-9887.

Billy