I've been watching this thread with interest, and just wanted to chime in on a couple of minor points. As far as the polygraph, we do use qualified polygraph operators to give an exhaustive exam on every Redfish Tour win, and at random as well as winners. There are also random times when a polygraph is designated for the Kayak Tour, and I believe that has happened a couple of times this year, as well as last year.

Call it "trust with verification", I guess. You do not have to be a suspected cheater or a winner to draw the polygraph test.

As far as the other comments here, we read them and those that make sense for possible future consideration, we keep those in mind accordingly. Those that don't seem like such good ideas, may still lead to some creative analysis. Occasionally a solution suggested to us will make us aware of a problem or perception of one that we needed to hear. We appreciate the constructive input.

This is an interesting topic for sure. And I gotta say, when I started fishing this, for my entire first season, I scouted and fished every city the tourneys were being held. I thought we HAD to. I didn't even know you could (for instance)... register in Panama City, fish in Destin, then run back over to Panama for the weigh-in. And the only way I found out any different was when I overheard a guy say "whew.... just made it, we hit traffic".... I'll admit, I was too idealistic the first go around. But.... it was really fun scouting the cities, camping by myself and all that. It was a little vacation for me. Especially orange Bch. And that's what I want to touch on. The 2010 Championship was in Orange Bch. I had scouted it twice and caught fish, so I was pretty confident of a decent showing. (I didn't quite do that), but never-the-less, had a blast. The guy that won AOY fished Destin all three times there was a Gulf Coast tourney. And I don't mean to take away from his accomplishment AT ALL.. seriously, he's a hell of a fisherman, and he deserved that. BUT... the dude that won the championship.... in Orange Bch.... fished Orange Bch! Kelly, I think his name was. I only heard of 4 guys I can confirm that actually DID fish Orange Bch. and I only saw one guy, both tourneys, on the water. That was Jeff Suber. And I know he has to do a bit of driving, as well as I do. (I live in Panama)....

Anyway, if I didn't make a clear point with my little rant, here it is.... Fish where you want to. It by no means guarantees you a win. It is absolutely NOT cheating to go to a capt's meeting in Destin, then fish your home waters, then go back to Destin. You still gotta put fish in the boat, and the same guys seem to consistently do that. Does that mean they have an advantage over me? Only in the fact that they are better fishermen.

Flatstalker
The guy that won the 2010 AOY (Liam Callaghan) fished in 3 different locations including the final two legs which both happened to be in Orange Beach 5 hours from his home waters. You have him mixed up with the Gulf AOY winner from last year. The top two spots from the 2010 Championship were both won in Orange Beach(Kelly and myself) I also live 5 hours from Orange Beach.

Maybe the Regional events can have boundries applied to them. Say a 25 mile radius from checkin which would allow for 50 miles of coastline to be used. This way the bigger events would offer more of a professional challenge.

Thanks for clearing that up. There is a local shop here, and one of the guys there gave me some 'friendly' advice about where certain people fished. But like I said, that dude, hell.....BOTH those Callaghan boys can fish.

I was impressed with you guys at Orange Bch. too, you did a hell of a job those two days. Do you know if anyone ventured out to that little rock 'island' in the pass there in a 'yak? I noticed boats on it all day, but I didn't have the balls to paddle out there. There were some big-ass boats going through that pass.