Official 2012 AOTY Thread

Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!
I think Salty is holding off his post till after Thur so I dont know what to upgrade.
Still have 3 days at the cove  
My goal is some pink meat before I head home
Tried today, but wind and fog came up and made it nasty after the group headed home.
Will try again tomorrow, Wife and wind permitting.

See Ya Soon,
Eric / Yakhopper

i thought the fish have to have a closed mouth in the pics

i thought the fish have to have a closed mouth in the pics

Yes, but sometimes it is very difficult to get the mouth to stay closed.  BTDT!

My understanding is that you need to do your best effort to get it closed and if it won't, the bottom jaw needs to be touching the front of the board.

Look at the picture of my LMB on page 6 of this thread. Polepole wanted to use this picture as what will be allowed for the mouth open. So its my understanding that this is the maximum limit of mouth opened. It aint that hard fellas.

A sure tell if the mouth is open too far is if the gills are flared in any way.  That's one of the things we look for.

-Allen

You are correct, the mouth is to be closed in the picture for AOTY.
The pic of my rockfish was not acceptable and has been disqualified. I will try to get better pics from now on ...... sorry    
It seems the best way to get a good pic is to kill, it take it to the cleaning table, where there are hundreds of fish to chose from, than take a photo. HELL, may as well fillet it while your there.

Sent from my phone cause I can

Hah i wounder how many people have done that

lost my Hawg trough at GS6 like last yr...will a pic with tape measure laid along side be acceptable???  I've got a 30" ling to post up from sun...DaveW's ling was 33" and we measured mine at 30"...???

I've been thinking about the "mouth open" rule.  I admit to be a repeat offender, but it is not because I don't try.  Unless you are going to "keep" a fish, I just can't seem to get it all done AND still release the fish in a decent time.  Not too mention that I have had a few "trough flop" off the trough on me before I could get everything just "right", so now I keep the hooks in or lip grip to ensure it stays put till I can get a picture.

Honestly, it should be a "if you are clearly exploiting for extra length" kinda rule.  What are we talking about 1/4" - 1/2" at best?  The more time I mess around with the fish, the smaller its survival rate gets.  Slime getting rubbed off, no water on the gills, etc...  Promoting a quick CnR should be the priority for me if you're not going to keep the fish.

/my $0.02

All I know is Jim was giving it hell all weekend up there!

Thanks for the sponsor update Allen, thats awesome!

One thing that still seem unknown to me about AOTY.

Are fish reviewed by the mods as they come in, or is all done at the end?

If the former then maybe it would be helpful to have sort of a notation that the fish was reviewed and acceptable for AOTY.

Thanks!

 Rob

If the former then maybe it would be helpful to have sort of a notation that the fish was reviewed and acceptable for AOTY.

Thanks!

 Rob

+1 as long as it doesn't place a large additional burden on the AOTY committee.

If the former then maybe it would be helpful to have sort of a notation that the fish was reviewed and acceptable for AOTY.

Thanks!

 Rob

+1 as long as it doesn't place a large additional burden on the AOTY committee.

Is it really this difficult to post clear photographic evidence?  It never ceases to amaze me some of the entries that obviously don't follow the rules.  In most of these cases, the participant posts the entry to see what they can get away with.  Let me be clear here.  If you do not have clear photographic evidence (that includes head/mouth, tail, and everything in between), the entry can be DQ'd at any time.  At the very end we also re-review all entries to make sure they are ok.  So do us all a favor, yourself included, and submit entries that you know to be good (vs. entries that you HOPE are good).  You know, I've received responses to DQ's along the lines of, "gee, if I had know it would have been DQ'd, I wouldn't have quit targeting that species long ago".  Well ... tough shit. I know that sounds harsh, but we're all big boys (and girls) here.  YOU should have known better.

-Allen

If the former then maybe it would be helpful to have sort of a notation that the fish was reviewed and acceptable for AOTY.

Thanks!

 Rob

+1 as long as it doesn't place a large additional burden on the AOTY committee.

Is it really this difficult to post clear photographic evidence?  It never ceases to amaze me some of the entries that obviously don't follow the rules.  In most of these cases, the participant posts the entry to see what they can get away with.  Let me be clear here.  If you do not have clear photographic evidence (that includes head/mouth, tail, and everything in between), the entry can be DQ'd at any time.  At the very end we also re-review all entries to make sure they are ok.  So do us all a favor, yourself included, and submit entries that you know to be good (vs. entries that you HOPE are good).  You know, I've received responses to DQ's along the lines of, "gee, if I had know it would have been DQ'd, I wouldn't have quit targeting that species long ago".  Well ... tough shit. I know that sounds harsh, but we're all big boys (and girls) here.  YOU should have known better.

-Allen

Whoa there!  I'll take that as a no.

 I didn't mean to offend you polepole, I just thought Diroblo's suggestion was a solid one provided it didn't take the committee too much time.  About the sturgeon you guys removed for unclear photographic evidence, I know I made a stink about it earlier, but I have no hard feelings, nor was I alluding to that in my post.  If I target sturgeon for AOTY in the future I will either kill one so I can drag it to shore and photograph it, or figure out a way to CPR a fish of that size.  I don't agree with the rule, but I don't set the rules, so I will abide.  Anyhow, I hope I didn't piss you guys off too much, and if I did then I am sorry ( I am assuming you were talking me since you quoted my response).

Sorry ATD.  That was not addressed to you specifically.  It was a generic "you", although in re-reading my post, I can certainly see how you could think it was directed at "you you".

-Allen