April 22nd, 2012

Dear Anglers,

        Our fifth meeting of the year will be held on Sunday May 13th at 2pm in the Gander Mountain Lodge Room in New Hartford. Topics of discussion include sponsors for each tournament, trophies, possible lake schedule change due to water level conditions on Redfield Reservoir, as well as any old business. All are encouraged to attend. As of our fourth meeting, we currently only have two paid sponsors so far. Everyone please do your best to try and acquire sponsorships for the remaining tournaments. This will help to increase payouts for our anglers as well as provide some advertising for the sponsors. Thank you.

        It has been voted on and passed to hold a Big Money Open Tournament this year. The tournament will be held September 22nd, 2012 on Oneida Lake at the South Shore Launch site. Entry fees for the tournament will be $150.00 per boat / team plus an optional Lunker Pool Fund fee of $10.00 per boat / team if you preregister for the tournament. The Lunker Pool Fund is 100% payback split between biggest Largemouth and biggest Smallmouth. Payouts will consist of 80% of entry fees collected with a maximum of Five places paid out. Payout places to be determined by the number of boat / team entries; 0 - 24 entries = 2 places, 25 - 29 entries = 3 places, 30 - 34 entries = 4 places, 35+ entries = 5 places. All preregistration entries for the tournament must be post-marked no later than September 1st, 2012. If not preregistering for the tournament the cost will be $200.00 along with the optional Lunker Pool Fund fee of $10.00 per boat / team due at the time of the tournament. Also the boater must have a minimum of $100,000.00 liability insurance coverage at the time of the tournament. This will also posted in the forums section, please feel free to post any questions or comments.

        The lakes have been selected for this year and the 2012 updated schedule is now up. All tournaments are closed to nonmembers, so stop into a meeting to join up or contact one of the officers listed below for further information on becoming a member. Lake Champlain will be 100% payout tournament this year to help offset its expense for members. Also Dave Visser has some good news on lodging for this tournament. He has made arrangements at the Stone House Motel in Lake Champlain. The phone number is (518)585-7394, just let them know you are a member of MVBA. There is more information in his post on the forums as well.

        There is an additional tournament this year for a total of nine regular season tournaments as well as our two day tournament classic. A payout increase for the regular season tournaments was voted on and passed with the following changes. The regular season tournament entry fee for each tournament will be increased from $75.00 to $80.00 per boat. The Lunker Pool payout each tournament will be decreased from $10.00 per boat to $5.00 per boat. Each boat that qualifies for the MVBA Two Day Classic will pay a one day classic fee of $100.00 per boat, as long as all the regular season tournaments were paid and aleast six were fished. Also, in order to include the money for the trophies in the payouts, all regular season tournaments must be sponsored by the May 2012 meeting.