The HDTT - HOG DOG TOURNAMENT TRAIL

From an organizer's stand point Chance, from someone who is trying to bring hunters in and get them to participate in any tournament, I put myself in their shoes. On average, 50% of the teams in 5 hog stringer tournaments don't even catch good enough hogs to deem it worthy enough to come to weigh-in.

If there were 20 teams weighing over 1,000 pounds stringers in each tournament and 75% of the teams that entered showed up to weigh-in their catch we'll fantastic, boars or barrs wouldn't matter. But that's not what's happened. What's happened is that there's a few guys (most of whom have been opinionated on this thread) who have weighed in huge stringers with barrs. And these few guys are way fewer in number that have a barring tradition in place that supports a higher potential to consistently weigh in huge stringers for tournaments.

As an organizer, I ask myself basic "business development" questions. Such as " How do I create a field of contestants?". "How do I entice enough hunters to join my trail and ACTUALLY participate in multiple tournaments stretching across hundreds of miles of Texas?" There's not a large field of guys. And if I put myself into the shoes of the hunter who I think is typical to the majority of contestants, my guess at what he's thinking is this "I can't even do well in my local tournament, what makes me think I can compete on a multi-tournament State level". And the fact is... He can't.

There use to only be a few tournaments around. Last year, our hunting community has seen a sprouting of new satellite tournaments in areas that hadn't had one. Serious logistics and resources play HUGE determinations as to whether a hunter even considers entering multiple tournaments. The Randy Bumpurs tournament created a new challenge for hog doggers. It created a live 10 hog stringer which hadn't been done. And a lot of other tournaments followed suit by switching to live weight and increasing their stringer. And while this increased the difficulty, these factors also played into overall number of team entry, overall number of teams who come to weigh-in percentage. And most importantly, it deters a hunter from even entering when there are huge weights posted and he knows it would be impossible to honestly compete.

The change in direction of tournament formats now includes a completely different set of challenges. Lower tournament requirements will entice more teams to enter, especially on a multi-tournament level. Tournaments and their weigh-ins will prosper with a higher weigh-in percentage and more people at the events. The challenge of actually winning will still remain but by narrower margins of victory.

All of these aspects have been considered and discussed by many of the tournament directors. These decisions were not intended to penalize a group of hunters because they did so well. It's to try and bring more entry's into the tournys and give hope back to each team that they can win.

So please quit taking it so personal and try and see the big picture. Dang, it's like you guys already had the prize money spent and I'm pulling dollar bills out of your pocket!