Catfish Contest Thoughts

[SkunkedAgain]

I really like all the ideas that are being floated out there. Here are some of my thoughts:
A shorter season might allow more focus rather than tapering off toward the end of the season. Plus, the hunting guys tend to change focus closer to fall.
Monthly recognition is a great idea. It will help incentives active participation, rather than just participating when you happen to land a lunker. I struggled last year to catch anything bigger than 26". This caused me to loose focus on the contest and in turn didn't pay any attention to the forum unless I caught something worth sharing.
A multi-species contest similar to the ice fishing contest will certainly help bring in more participants. I like this format as long as I can still focus on the cats.
I think sponsorships will help incentives participation, but will also help with advertising to bring in more attention. I don't have "connections" but I will certainly bring this up to anyone that I run into that does have connections with suppliers/retailers.

Thanks for your time reviewing and checking things out, appreciate your suggestions as well.. I've had conversations on line, off line, on the phone and text, so I'm not sure where this comment got floated but I'm kind of leaning towards the spring and fall contest, with the same formats, but having two end periods.  So it doesn't drag on so long.  I think 7 or 8 months is too long to keep any kind of interest unless you're one of the top few in striking distance from winning... Then it's a source of continual Ulcers hoping your big one is big enough to stay on top.. I think shorter will be better, but I also realize that we need to have both spring and summer available for the contest, north does best early and the south does great in August... So we need to cover both good bites... Anyway I'm starting to lean to an April to June 15 contest and an August to October 31 contest... Leaving the dog days of summer open for having free time...  Thanks for the reply... Jeff