New owner of a BassCat! Is there more information about this owners invitational? Just trying to understand what’s it about and how to participate
Congrats on your boat!
The Owners Invitational is a lot of fun. The location rotates every year and is typically held in the spring. As someone else mentioned, you can go to the Events page on the BassCat website and look back through previous years.
The tournament is two days – Friday and Saturday. It’s a two-man team. You may fish by yourself if you wish. One person on the team must be the registered owner of a BassCat, and you must fish out of that boat. You do not have to be the original owner. It can be a pre-owned boat that you purchased.
Format is 5 fish limit. Total weight for two days wins.
There also prizes for things like biggest bass, biggest crappie, biggest striper, etc (depending on what fish are in the lake where the tournament is held).
They also take 20 little yellow rubber ducks and hide them around the lake each day. Each one has a number written on the bottom of it. If you find one, you bring it back to weigh in and you get a prize. Last year I won a Lews reel. Most of them are worth a rod (or two) or a reel. One is typically worth a trolling motor and another is worth a set of Power Poles.
The coolest thing is that BassCat gives away a brand new Premium line boat. Last year it was an Eyra. You have to win the tournament right? WRONG! 🙂 It’s a random drawing. If there’s 350 teams registered, you have 1 in 355 chance of winning.
They give away a different boat for winning the tournament. If I remember correctly, it was a Bobcat last year.
They usually have a social on Friday night and serve food.
It is a very cool event, and I really recommend going. Smith Lake was my first OI and I’ll never forget the fog that morning and how cool it looked with almost 300 boats floating around in that as the sun came up.. then following the pontoon out.
EDIT: I think they also gave away a 150hp Mercury last year. That may have been one of the duck prizes.