Angler of the Year 2016 - Kickoff and questions

Thank you for all the hard work in finding sponsors and helping to make AOTY a good one this year Captain, I know we all appreciate it!

Just wondering if there's a formal BBQ or get together or something to close out the AOTY in January or February? Hand out awards and what not and we can all tell fish stories.

No plans yet, but I would really like to do something like that. The difficult part is that we have members all over the place. But I still think that would be a really good time. We should make it happen.

EDIT: And I really appreciate the feedback, makes it all worth it! I hope we can get a few more folks signed up this year.

Big Hammers are awesome. They have a lot better action than other swimbaits ive used. The smaller ones work great for rockfish and I caught a nice Mackinaw on one last year.  I like their jigheads also, but I wish they made them larger. I think the biggest is 1.5 oz. A 3 oz would be nice. Thanks for the hard work Captain

One more question since I seem to be the king of questions in this thread... But it is the question thread after all 

Why is Grayling on the list? My guess is to give the Alaska guys another species (which makes sense.) But unless I am looking at it incorrectly none have ever been caught (at least for AOTY points.) I guess it doesn't really matter... Just curious.

One more question since I seem to be the king of questions in this thread... But it is the question thread after all 

Why is Grayling on the list? My guess is to give the Alaska guys another species (which makes sense.) But unless I am looking at it incorrectly none have ever been caught (at least for AOTY points.) I guess it doesn't really matter... Just curious.

There are several examples of species that are not found in every AOTY state.  Good luck catching a lingcod in Idaho or a pink salmon in Oregon.  There are many species to choose from and in the end we'll take your 10 best species scores.

One more question since I seem to be the king of questions in this thread... But it is the question thread after all 

Why is Grayling on the list? My guess is to give the Alaska guys another species (which makes sense.) But unless I am looking at it incorrectly none have ever been caught (at least for AOTY points.) I guess it doesn't really matter... Just curious.

There are several examples of species that are not found in every AOTY state.  Good luck catching a lingcod in Idaho or a pink salmon in Oregon.  There are many species to choose from and in the end we'll take your 10 best species scores.

And I totally get that, but what's the point if no one is catching them?

It doesn't really matter - was just curious is all.

One more question since I seem to be the king of questions in this thread... But it is the question thread after all 

Why is Grayling on the list? My guess is to give the Alaska guys another species (which makes sense.) But unless I am looking at it incorrectly none have ever been caught (at least for AOTY points.) I guess it doesn't really matter... Just curious.

There are several examples of species that are not found in every AOTY state.  Good luck catching a lingcod in Idaho or a pink salmon in Oregon.  There are many species to choose from and in the end we'll take your 10 best species scores.

And I totally get that, but what's the point if no one is catching them?

It doesn't really matter - was just curious is all.

They were added due to requests to have 10 available species to target in Alaska. I would imagine at some point someone up there will get serious about AOTY and catch one.

Thanks Noah!

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Lots of submissions coming in now. I just wanted to say I really appreciate how this year AOTY is being run. The processing times this year are a lot faster and seeing the new catches on the Facebook feed is great! The side challenges are also exciting to follow this year now that we have a variety.

Anyways thanks again!

Lots of submissions coming in now. I just wanted to say I really appreciate how this year AOTY is being run. The processing times this year are a lot faster and seeing the new catches on the Facebook feed is great! The side challenges are also exciting to follow this year now that we have a variety.

Anyways thanks again!

Yeah, that! Thanks Captain Redbeard for all your hard work! Not to mention the awesome prizes he's lined up.

Lots of submissions coming in now. I just wanted to say I really appreciate how this year AOTY is being run. The processing times this year are a lot faster and seeing the new catches on the Facebook feed is great! The side challenges are also exciting to follow this year now that we have a variety.

Anyways thanks again!

Agree!

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it! I do want to mention that there's a lot of people involved to make this happen - truly at team effort. We all appreciate the feedback.

We just approved some pretty nice fish! Make sure you're checking out the "Slam" leaderboards.

Overall Leaderboard:
Some new names a top the leader board with some old ones lurking below with big avg scores! This is shaping up to be a pretty interesting year. It's certainly not too late to get your hat in the ring. 
http://aoty.northwestkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/list

Saltwater Slam:
This is pretty interesting as well. As a reminder, your top 4 fish are counted on this board and it's no shock to see rawkfish in the top spot. However, he's only ahead by 4 points over whakamomoka! And there is a certain high flying yaker (Langcod) with the highest average score lurking below. Anchored by a 214 point halibut he's got an excellent chance at knocking off the saltiest guy I know.
http://aoty.northwestkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/saltwater_slam

Freshwater:
Not currently a close race but some really nice fish posted so far by crackergraham
http://aoty.northwestkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/freshwater_slam

Fly Fishing:
Super cool to see some fish on here already and 4 solid fish posted by surf12foot
http://aoty.northwestkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/flylist

In case you're not paying attention to the leadboard or AOTY facebook (like us) feed here are some of the recent fish:

Woo-hoo! I'm on the "on the fly" board! More to come... it's been harder than I expected - a fun challenge.

Congratulations on scoring on the fly!

Cap'n, where do striped bass fit in the species/scoring?