Future AOTY Suggestion: Total Species Points

Well ya got my attention so I looked at your striper pic. Thats the worst picture for AOTY ive seen for awhile. Is it really that hard to take a decent picture of a dead fish?

And this is pic is any better?

It's better than a dark pic of the head with a lip gripper in the way and a wide open mouth. Can't tell if the mouth is touching the board or not.

This is how an AOTY fish should be documented
Closed mouth and clear view of length as well as the mouth touching the end/beginning of the trough.
example 1:

Another good example if you plan on a catch picture and release.

example 2:

Well ya got my attention so I looked at your striper pic. Thats the worst picture for AOTY ive seen for awhile. Is it really that hard to take a decent picture of a dead fish?

And this is pic is any better?

Yes.  Clear view of the fishes lips.

-Allen

Another good example if you plan on a catch picture and release.

example 2:

Not!

Hard to tell from the angle how the fishes mouth is.  One thing we look for is flared gills.  With your hands up in the gills, it's hard to tell.

-Allen

This is how an AOTY fish should be documented
Closed mouth and clear view of length as well as the mouth touching the end/beginning of the trough.
example 1:

Actually, if you look closely at your "measuring device" ... IT SUCKS!  It appears to me like the inch markers on your hand written extender are less than an inch.  Seriously.       Start at the 32" mark on the yardstick.  It is to the left of the nearest hand written hash mark.  Now go to the 37" mark.  It is to the right of the nearest hash mark.

-Allen

This is how an AOTY fish should be documented
Closed mouth and clear view of length as well as the mouth touching the end/beginning of the trough.
example 1:

Actually, if you look closely at your "measuring device" ... IT SUCKS!  It appears to me like the inch markers on your hand written extender are less than an inch.  Seriously.       Start at the 32" mark on the yardstick.  It is to the left of the nearest hand written hash mark.  Now go to the 37" mark.  It is to the right of the nearest hash mark.

-Allen

I'm not in AOTY, so I wasn't going to say anything...

I'll defend Rob on this one Allen. I think it is camera angle. The 34-35 marks are dead on and the pic is straight down. Looking left or right the marks change as you look sideways at it, if this makes any sense to you.

I think AOTY should devide total points by how many days fished.
This might get a better idea of an anglers ability, rather than who has the most time OTW.

If you want a level playing field only count fish caught in tourneys

I'll defend Rob on this one Allen. I think it is camera angle. The 34-35 marks are dead on and the pic is straight down. Looking left or right the marks change as you look sideways at it, if this makes any sense to you.

It doesn't make sense to me.  The 2 devices are on the same level plane.

Also if you look at the other picture (the head shot) in the same post, you'll see the end of the upper device is also offset to the left of the main device.

Also look at the whole fish pic and zoom in on the tail section.  The hash tags are not aligned the same as the tail shot.

-Allen

LOL I think the intention, and attitude, of the AOTY is pretty clear in this thread.  Enjoy my donation this year as no way I'll be doing it again next year with so much life and death hanging in the balance!!!  Go through the AOTY thread if you want to see my stance on measuring.  Deduct a point or delete the fish entirely, whatever you would like to do.  It's not like it counted anyways 

Perhaps a signed notary verification of accuracy of exact measurement is in order just to be sure for all future entries?  A pic of the lips and then tail is also not exactly proof either, if we want to play that game as well.  I mean we could be talking about at least .1" difference here!

It w/b cool if we could see how many species each angler caught.
Is there a way to make it display an angler's top fish for each species? When you click on their name, i shows all fish entered (instead of just the biggest for each species).

Edit:  Nevermind, not worth it.  I actually fish to have fun not stress about this kinda crap.

LOL I think the intention, and attitude, of the AOTY is pretty clear in this thread.  Enjoy my donation this year as no way I'll be doing it again next year with so much life and death hanging in the balance!!!  Go through the AOTY thread if you want to see my stance on measuring.  Deduct a point or delete the fish entirely, whatever you would like to do.  It's not like it counted anyways 

Perhaps a signed notary verification of accuracy of exact measurement is in order just to be sure for all future entries?  A pic of the lips and then tail is also not exactly proof either, if we want to play that game as well.  I mean we could be talking about at least .1" difference here!

Oh come on.

AOTY is still based on trust at the end of the day.  Heck, we have no way of verifying from pictures that the participant even caught the entered fish.  What the guidelines for measuring/photographing do is establish a consistent method for making entries.  At the same time they are intended to not overly burdening participants.  I mean, it should be pretty easy to take a clear picture, right?  You'd think.  But it never ceases to amaze me the number of bad pictures entered.  And it never ceases to amaze me the number of people that get bent out of shape being called out on them.

-Allen