N.E.W.C. Oneida Lake Event

The N.E.W.C. Walleye Circuit will be holding its 7th Annual Summer Open Walleye tournament on Oneida Lake on Sunday July 22nd, 2012.
The event is held out of Oneida Shores State Park, and will be from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm. Teams may pre register for this event by downloading an entry form from the website at www.neweasternwalleyecircuit.com and mailing it along with the entry fee of $ 260.00 to the tournament Director by Monday July 16. Teams may also sign up the evening before the event (optional) at Gander Mountain in Cicero from 6:00 – 6:30 pm, or in the morning before the event at the launch.
This exciting event is “Open” to all anglers as well as any size boat, and has some anglers traveling 5 – 8 hours to participate, and counting the days till take off. This angler friendly fun format is not only unique in that there is “NO” membership fees, you may sign up the morning of the event without having to pay a late fee, and is the longest running Team Tournament on Oneida Lake, but it is also able to boast about its 90% payback with 50 teams, the largest in the area, and any sponsorship will be added money to the original payout to increase the purse.
With only “50” teams the event will pay down 5 places with 1st place being worth $5,000.00, and big fish worth $1,000.00. There will be food and beverages included along with plaques for the top placing teams and Big Fish.
For more info visit our website at www.neweasternwalleyecircuit.com or you may contact the tournament Director at tgmeans@earthlink.net or by phone (814) 362-1423, or the evening before the event at (814) 331-3112.
Pre registering is extremely helpful in planning how much food is needed for the event.
Looking forward to seeing everyone again and remember, you have to be in it to win it.

Tom Means
Director

[Hoooch]

so what will everything payout when you get your normal 17 entrants? You have never even come close to 50! And what sponsorships do you have that are giving you money to add to the purse? This is a joke...

[rouge1]

Are you kidding me...you are paying 5 places for 50 entries.....1 in 10 payout? You had less than 20 entries last year. What makes you think you will get 50 this year?

[J. LAWRENCE]

this post is based on my own views, but i have to imagine the majority of hardcore walleye tournament anglers from the north east would agree. with there being very few walleye events in the north east, my basic rule is if we can fish a tournament and stand a chance of bringing home more money than i left the house with i am going play! i cant understand why anyone would beat up a tournament director on the web. these people do alot for us anglers, with virtually no return! without them we would be fishing for fun. thats what i do with my kids. simply there would be no tournaments what so ever if this small handful of people didnt take the time to put these events together. so know matter who is having a tournament in the north east larry and i are going to be there to support them and the sport we love! the N.E.W.C. has been a great circuit to fish with time and place always good for the best bite. the onieda lake team walleye trail tournament was also well ran and i hope that there will be many more. the issue that is killing me is that lions club annual walleye tournament had almost 1900 anglers this year, if we had 5 percent of these local anglers we would have one **** of a turn out. where are you ? we cant have 50 teams if you dont show up!!!!!!!!!!

[Kemo]

Well said Jason. I live 6 hours away and I will be there with my 13 year old son.

[Hoooch]

I think you guys are missing my point. The Lions Club is a fundraising derby. It cost 10 bucks and there are a bunch of people who buy a ticket just to give a donation. Then you have to remember that there are lot of people who don't have a boat, so the derby allows them to fish from shore. I do agree, it would be great if more of them entered the tournaments. I'm not beating up the director, I just think his post is VERY misleading. Read it carefully...how can you boast about having a 90% payout when ou have 50 teams...when he has never had that many? And then to only pay 1 out of ten? Maybe next time instead of Jason writing the truth and asking where all the anglers are maybe Tom should be asking?

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!!!

This is truly a shame some will resort to this kind of public bashing in order to acheive a different agenda, making themselves feel good about trying to prevent the locals from participating in this event so their event looks better. As I have discussed with the anglers on the phone who are disapointed in the actions of these 4 people (yes there is 1 team and two seperate individuals) yes we all know who they are even though they think they are able to hide behind a annonimous name because of the cowardness to sign there real name. They all have my personal phone number as well as my cell number, and if they wanted to discuss any thing, they could have called me.

There is nothing misleading about what I have writen, just the facts.
Yes, with 50 teams 1st place will pay 5,000.00, and that is without any sponsor money. Pretty simple straight forward.

If there is less than 50 teams 1st will pay less than 5,000.00. Didn't really think people would need this explained.

In the past we have had around 30 teams +/- a couple (I don't have this info at work).

Last year we only had 17 teams. This was terribly dissapointing to all of us. We had many from the area that chose not to fish the event last year when they had a poor pre fishing, and didn't want to participate. The out of town anglers still participated and had a great time.

We only have 2 1/2 teams who have complained about the amount of our entry fee from that area.

As I discussed with them a couple years ago, in the beginning we charged $150.00 Entry fee (everything included) and the anglers asked us to increase it to make it worth traveling. I listened, consulted our loyal teams that travel to all our events and increased it to $260.00.

This is the aggravating part to me.

Entry fee is $260.00
no membership fees
big fish pot is included (20.00 per entry)
90% payout
no late fee that other directors keep
We put on the event, cook hot dogs, pizza, Sue makes Pasta salad, pop, water, beer, Ice,park fees, plaques, door prizes, travel there, pay for hotel (except last two years)meals etc.
End of seson T.O.Y. awards
website set up, design, hosting,maintenance fees
get home figure all the points out (yes I know its my choice to be a director)

My point is this, you get more than just a fishing tournament for the fee. The price is only $130.00 per team mate. this is only $55 more per person than a $150.00 event.

Unlike other events we do not raffle out prizes that were donated for the anglers so we can put money in our pocket or cover expenses. We also trust in our anglers morals that there is no reason to kill and cut the fish so releasing them is not an option. We hold our event next to the water so if the fish are healthy we are able to release them.

As for only paying 5 places for 50 teams, we also payed 5 places for 18 teams. We do pay more places for more than 50 teams. I have discussd this formula with our core group as well.

Were you will never please everyone, it is my belief that I want 5th place payout to cover entry fee minimum, and have 1st place be something to brag about.

Maybe in a proffesional event with large entry fees it makes sense to take from the top teams to pay further down, but in this situation, we do not.

I heard plenty of complaints about the small payouts from another event held this year on Oneida, because they payed to far down, and they even bragged about having large added sponsorships.

As you can see there is no right answer, we try to do what we think is right and try to make all happy. Bottom line is come fish and enjoy the fun spirited competition, comrodary, ball bustin fun with the event, and if you are fortunate enough to place in the top of the competion be proud of that accomplishment and enjoy the fact you got paid to fish that weekend.

Grow this event by bringing your friends to compete with you, not trying to discourage them and kill the sport we try so hard to promote.

As stated in the beginning you all have my phone number (814) 362-1423 leave a message and I will call you back, and am happy to discuss this face to face with you Saturday if you like.

I am happy to take a vote at the end of the tournament to discuss next years payouts for this event. If you are in it you have a right to help this out. If your not:

Stop being part of the problem, get involved grab a couple teams and be part of the solution!!!!

Looking forward to seeing every one this weekend.

Tom Means

[jerkbt]

This public bashing of eachother should stop it encourages no one to enter into any tournament. we want more anglers to be fishing all events and promoting the sport.Make your decisions.Make your choices but lets keep them to home. Better to work together and have fun for all. k

[Rowdy_0729]

Over the past 10 years, We have fished several tournament trails: Team Walleye; Western PA Anglers, World Walleye Assoc; Kinzua Alleghany Walleye Assoc (KAWA), Masters Walleye Circuit, Kinzua Outdoors and the N.E.W.C, and Oneida Lake Team Walleye.

Several of these trails are no longer in existence because of different reasons such as lack of membership and support or they were poorly run. In our opinion, I don't understand why there is not more support for Tom's tournaments. Avid tournament fisherman are alwasy seeking good events to fish and there are very few.

There are always complaints about something (price, location, prizes, etc.) as you cannot please everyone all the time but why not take advantage of the tournament trails that are available. Derbies are set up as fund-raisers and are fun for families. Tournaments are for serious fisherman who like the chance to make money while doing something they enjoy. They put their money and their ability on the line.

We don't understand where all this antagonism is coming from. We would hate to see The N.E.W.C. no longer host events on Oneida Lake because of a lack of angler participation.

As you can see from the first paragraph, we have fished with many different trails and as far as we are concerned, Tom has had one of the best-run leagues to date with the highest payouts and the most fun.

Lastly, I think that if people make critical statements they should at least own up to them by signing their name.

Bill and Linda Greczyn

[Rowdy_0729]

Derbies are nothing like a tournament! You are comparing apples to oranges.