AOTY 2017 Rule Change Proposal #2 - Greenling removal & replacement

Hi All,

The AOTY Committee has been discussing potential rule changes for 2017, and have come up with a few ideas for consideration.  We'd like to get the AOTY competitors to provide us input on these ideas to see whether they would be worth changing.  This is the second in a series of polls about the ideas that have been tossed around.  While the polls are not binding, we will be happy to take the results under advisement when making our decisions for 2017.

The second rule proposal is to remove Greenling from the fish categories.  Generally speaking, most of us kayak anglers do not purposely target greenling, and they are a bycatch of rockfishing.  Greenling are difficult for AOTY competitors to measure, due to their unique mouth shape which makes it difficult to close properly when the fish is alive.  There has been no fish this year that has been rejected more due to the mouth open rule than Greenling.

Anyways, the rule proposal is to remove Greenling from the competition, and replace them with another fish species to round out the 20.  The preference is to keep it a saltwater fish to keep the balance that is currently in place.  Two ideas came up during our discussions this year:

• Replace them with Vermillion Rockfish.  This is the premier rockfish for our area and generally the largest.  Most people try to catch verms due to their size, fight and high quality as a food resource.
• Replace greenling with Flatfish (Soles, Flounders and Sanddabs).  While this was a category a few years ago, it was not a popular one at the time, as most people caught very small sanddabs and the occasional starry flounder. AOTY Committee member Clayman is a big proponent of the flatfishes, and targets them specifically out of certain harbors due to their high quality as a food source.  In addition, they are not a heavily targeted fish and the increased challenge of learning how to target and catch a different fish species falls in line with the intention of the AOTY competition.

If you have other recommendations, please feel free to comment below as stated in the poll.  Again, please, only vote if you are an AOTY competitor or honestly plan to be one in the future.

Good idea & I'd be cool with either flatties or verms. 

I say leave it and allow them to be measured on their stomach.

I vote for flatfish! I'd be stoked to try for them next year.

And thank you to everyone who runs AOTY!

Nah, leave it.

Havin a hard time catchin greenlings Ben? 

Havin a hard time catchin greenlings Ben? 

Have you checked inside of lingcod?  Sometimes there are greenling there.

I vote for leaving greenling. 

If you can't get a 17.75" greenie then just quit fishing. 

Seriously though, targeting greenling is one of the best challenges of AOTY, IMO.

The "crappie" of the coast

BMB, couldn't you have started a few more of these AOTY rule change threads simultaneously or named them more similarly? For now I'm only mildly confused LOL  Some of us like to stretch average intellect no more than mildly. Keep Greenling or rotate species, I don't like absolutes. Lingcod absolutely measured on side.

I am all for the flatfish, it's a whole new species group that's fun to target in my opinion and has lots of potential. Targeting Greenling does not take much skill as far as I'm concerned, flatfish are much more of a specific species to target and take a bit more patience, technique, and finesse. Plus they are much better table fare than Greenling.

BMB, couldn't you have started a few more of these AOTY rule change threads simultaneously or named them more similarly? For now I'm only mildly confused LOL  Some of us like to stretch average intellect no more than mildly. Keep Greenling or rotate species, I don't like absolutes. Lingcod absolutely measured on side.

So if I understand this, we are replacing Ben with a Greenling now?????   

BMB, couldn't you have started a few more of these AOTY rule change threads simultaneously or named them more similarly? For now I'm only mildly confused LOL  Some of us like to stretch average intellect no more than mildly. Keep Greenling or rotate species, I don't like absolutes. Lingcod absolutely measured on side.

So if I understand this, we are replacing Ben with a Greenling now?????   

I vote for that.