Hey y'all,
My opinion shouldn't matter too much here since I haven't fished many club tournies over the past two years, but I thought I would share some math with everyone and you can take away whatever you want...
I tend to run a tight budget, so I was wondering what the difference in tow vehicle gas cost would be between an Eastern WA-heavy schedule and a Western WA-heavy schedule. I did a little algebra (OUCH). The prices below are based on someone driving round trip from Federal Way getting 12 MPG and paying $3.25 for a gallon of gas:
Eastern WA-heavy schedule: Banks, Potholes, Long Lake (Spokane), Chelan, Washington, Silver, Tri-Cities.
About $675.
Western WA-heavy schedule: Silver, Sammamish, Lower Columbia (Vancouver), Potholes, Vantage, Washington (twice).
About $347.
The Western WA schedule saves about $40 per tournament. That pays for camping. Not to mention we wouldn't be camping at a few of the lakes, anyways. $40 also pays a monthly bill for me.
Kirk and others raise good points about the crowds and fun-factor on crowded urban lakes. Trust me, I will fish Eastern WA any time I get the chance! But with some tournaments closer to home it might energize the club enough to host some more fun non-tourney events, like what the Logstons have put on for two years now.
So there is more stuff to think about. I always look forward to these discussion every year. It is interesting to see how clubbers' views change, or don't change, every year.
Crap - now I felt an urge to get on a soapbox for a second. It is funny how gas prices never seem to drive our feelings on lake locations. Is it ever going to happen? Are we always going to let big oil companies have our way with us? Until we start using less fuel we're never going to see prices go down and we're never going to see better development of cleaner vehicles. There isn't any excuse for not having electric trucks by now. The technology is there but there isn't any push to make it affordable and available because we all keep gobbling up gas.
That's a long post, but what the hell, it's off my chest.
Chris
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