Battle on Bago 2012

Battle on Bago is set for February 24th and 25th at Menominee Park in Oshkosh. We are approaching $100,000 in cash and prizes with the addition of several large sponsors and continued support of Mills Fleet Farm and John Gillespie. Other sponsors include Coleman, Northland, Frabill, Jiffy, Mercury, Associated Bank and many more. There will be $10,000 in cash given away, Pike County Illinois Hunting Trips, Guns, Fishing Vacations, Marcum Locators, Coleman Outdoors Products, Frabill Shacks, Jiffy Augers and an addition of an 18ft Fishing Boat powered by Mercury at 200th place.

Tentative schedule will be our famous fish fry and live music by Copper Box Friday night 5pm to 11pm. Saturday there will be events for the kids at the park with support of the YMCA, sponsor booths & demos, live music from The Happy Schnapps Combo1pm to 4pm and Live Music again at 7pm to 11pm Saturday night. The tournament and raffle winners will be announced by John Gillespie as MC at 4pm.  

Check out www.battleonbago.com for continous updates on prizes as they are added weekly and make sure to "Like" us on our Facebook page for updates on the event. In 4 years we've raised $176,366 for youth and conservation organizations throughout the state.

Tickets will be on sale at all Wisconsin Mills Fleet Farm Locations beginning late next week for a $5 discount until January 31st.

Looking forward to another safe and great event.

This may be off topic but does anyone know if the same people running Battle on Bago happen to run any sort of summer fishing tournament(s)?

You guys (and gals) did a great job. Have a great open water season. We will see you next year.

Guy's - our email is [email protected] - our meetings will begin in October, once a week until January, then three times a week until the end of February. Send name, phone number - we'll be glad to sign anyone up to help or add input. As for putting fishing ticket stubs in a box and pulling random names - it is against Wisconsin Gaming Laws to take a Paid Entry Event Ticket (i.e. $30 Fishing Ticket) and use those stubs in a raffle format. I have fished a number of tournaments for a lot more than $30 and they did not pull team numbers at the end of the event for the guys that walked away with nothing (i.e. Myself a lot). We have a seperate raffle for that purpose. Prize structure for 2013 will be the same but will try and pay down to 501st place and add some more surprises to the list. Lets put this thread to bed for the year. The boats coming out - no more ice fishing.

Just have a few major prize winners actually take a lie detector. Just one question. Did you catch your entry fish on the contest water? This will reduce the possibility of cheaters. Remember, this is Winnebago. It has a history of "offenders".

Heres one to throw out there and think about. With the prize list growing increase the categories to 1.Walleye/eelpot 2. White Bass 3. Perch/bluegill/chappie Say top 5 and then down to 100th place by every 5th place and having 50th be say $50 and be a chance a random drawing of these 3 50th place winners for the boat. Or even increase that to where the people at 50th, 75th and 100th would be placed in a random drawing for the boat. Having 9 people in a sudden death drawing on a live fed would really be exciting and I would think it would keep a lot more guys at the tent spending money on food and beverages.

I had a discussion with Kendall Kamke - the senior fiseries bioligist for the DNR and he indicated they would be able to provide no immediate help at a tournament whereby any samples taken for whatever reason would take weeks to get any results back. 2013 Battle will have more scales, and a number of volunteers policing the weigh-in line. Believe me, I don't want to sit and weigh-in fish for hours either, so it benefits both ends to increase efficiencies which we'll see next year. If you're bored today Google Battle on Bago and see how the world media twisted the story of "36 Trucks" sinking. Have a great open water season and we'll see you February 22nd and 23rd. Thanks again for the support and great turnout. The Battle on Bago Committee -

I thought you guys did an awesome job, and like said before cheating will happen no matter what. The only problem I had was, as we were eating we could hear how all the people on the table behind us were selling their unused tickets to other to register fish. I dont really have a problem with people unloading their tickets, the problem I had was that it was almost 4 when they were still selling them. What happened to the 2 o clock cut off?? Other then that one issue I had a blast and cant wait until next year.

FishnSS - I will talk to Kendal or Ron to see what viable option there would be to police the weigh in in terms of "suspect" fish. We would hope that if someone saw fish that were questionable or "definitely" not Winnebago System fish that they would come to the tournament committee and contest anyones fish as stated in the rules. There are a lot of bodies and a lot of fish being weighed in. We're dealing with adding 8 scales next year and live internet feeds to make the weigh in more efficient - and not sure what fin clipping would do to that process. We would have to wait a week or to until those results came back in order to hand out prizes. Our biggest asset to prevent cheating are the fisherman patroling other fisherman and letting us know about it the day of the tournament - not on Monday or Tuesday after. Cheating will happen, there's people like that in this world and they are also bumping themselves out of prizes. Any ideas or help you'd like to offer for next year would be greatly appreciated.

Last year I was a few spots a way from 200th place w/ a nice perch. So this year I went for perch...That game plan failed drastically, oh well, I had a great time. Thanks to all the volunteers.

only negative thing i have to say is that the guys that are perch/panfisherman got the short end of the stick...maybe next year they could space prizes out even more so that they would go down to the guys that fish for perch/panfish or do categories

Had a great time at the Battle. Wasn't able to register any of our fish considering our biggest perch was only 1/4 pound and the 18" sauger was ineligible. But that's fine, at least we caught fish, had a great time at the tent. The Fish Fry Friday night was worth it alone. Thanks to all of the organizers and volunteers. You guys/gals did an awesome job. And we are definitely looking forward to next year already.

I would also say they did a great job!Yes more scales would have been nice,waiting in line was a joke but with that many people and waking up at 3:30-4:00 in the morning I think we all were a little cranky but oh well had a GREAT time as always! A BIG THANK YOU!to Glen coming out from Merrit and telling people to get off the ice!I was 1 of the lucky 1's to be high and dry on both sides of that mess on a side note the kid placed #127 for a walleye and missed out,oh well thats how it go's. Here are a couple of pictures of front and back of my truck and some guy that could not find the bridge.

Great Job guys and gals, keep up the good work, Perhaps prizes by fish species would be a good twist :Gene, But a great event given the conditions!!!

There were 242 fish just between 1.25 and 1.50 pounds.

Waiting in the weigh-in line was a bit long, but worth it for the overall great time I had at the tournament. I'll be back next year.