Angler of the Year Submission Tips and Tricks - Don't Lose Points!

Hi All,
Here are a few tips to make sure your AOTY submissions get approved unharmed!

1. Mark your Hawg Troughs.  We try our best to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if we can't clearly see the hash mark, we downgrade to the closest clearly visible hash mark. 
2. Glare is your enemy - put some contrast on the picture where the tail crosses the line. A shadow from an arm or something would work.  This is especially difficult on metal rulers or light colored rulers.
3. Angle of picture - this is a difficult one for us, as the angle that a picture is taken can affect how the fish looks. We do the best we can but try to be conservative on these when approving.  The best thing for you to do is to try and take a picture of the fish from straight up, with focus slightly towards the back half of the fish so we can see where the tail crosses the hash, but still being able to tell mouth is closed.  This is where multiple pictures can help us, from different reference points. 
4. Tail only shots don't count - we can't verify based upon tail only shots unfortunately, but can use them as a reference if the full length picture isn't entirely clear.  So there's no point in taking picture of a tail only while you're holding the tail down at a certain angle or something, as that would look different than the full length picture.
5. Please do your best to close those mouths so you don't get your fish reduced.  We understand some fish are especially difficult to close mouths, and have seen it empirically through the last year, so we may be softening on a couple of fish species as long as everyone makes an effort.
6. Make sure you have an adequate extension for larger fish!  There are a few options out there besides the Hawg Trough now for larger fish, and we accept those things.  One I bought recently was the Rapala 60" folding fish ruler - I haven't used it on any fish yet but it looks like it would be a small, foldable ruler that can be easily stored just about anywhere.  probably not great to use to measure while on the water due to its 60" size, but would be great on shore. $18 from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Rapala-RMFR-Magnum-Folding-Ruler/dp/B001QJPQ12/


Happy fishing!
-bmb

Hi All,
Here are a few tips to make sure your AOTY submissions get approved unharmed!

1. Mark your Hawg Troughs.  We try our best to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if we can't clearly see the hash mark, we downgrade to the closest clearly visible hash mark. 

And / or tape measure.....