I have recently had discussions with different anglers in regards to some people wanting to see a change in the timing of the championship to move it into the same year as you qualify. I will say right up front I do not want to see that happen and want to present my reasons on why I think that would be a bad idea for the majority that fish the MWC.



In order to make that change it will require there to be 2 championships in one year to get caught up and on a schedule of having them in the same year as you qualify. For teams that qualify for both of those championships in that year it is going to add another tournament for them to fish and for challenge teams that means there will be 6 tournaments that year for them to try to fish. I know for us and some of the other people I have talked to this would be a stretch and would force some people to not be able to fish that many events so most likely their challenge events would get dropped. That is going to mean less participation and unique teams in a division which translates into less championship qualifiers from each division. I’m not sure why we would want to do anything that might lower our number of participants at the regular events even if it is just for one year?



I know some people have to turn in their vacation requests early in the year and once they are set it is difficult or impossible to change. If the championship is in the same year as qualification and you turn in for vacation for that week and don’t qualify for the championship then you are “stuck” with using that week of vacation for no reason. With the championship in the following year this allows you to know a year in advance of the exact amount and time you need off. With the fact that there are always a fair amount of families that attend the championship this affects an even larger number then just the anglers and would make it harder for those families to attend.



Even if you are able to get time off on short notice there will most likely always be one division finishing up the year 2-4 weeks before the championship. This does not leave much time for planning for travel and hotels and that type of stuff. It also leaves short notice for researching the fishery and area. While these are not impossible to do on short notice it would just add to the “rush” of finding out less then a month before the event if you are going or not and ultimately would give some advantage to the division that wraps the year up the earliest as they would be able to start prepping at that point.



For me a big part of the championship is the lead up to it and the way it is organized and ran different then a regular event. This includes the personalized gifts, the championship book and everything else that goes into making it a special event. Currently I know the staff starts working on these items months ahead of the actual tournament. With short time frames of knowing who the qualifiers are I would think most if not all of these personalized items would go by the way side as the lead times would not be great enough to pull off. To me that would diminish some of the prestige that qualifying for the championship represents.



I realize that not everyone is going to agree with my thoughts and that isn’t the goal of this post. I just wanted to make sure that anglers are considering all of the ramifications that would come along with making a change like this and how it could negatively affect a great number of people.

Matt D