I read all the posts on the ABF Apache tournament and I really felt bad for the tournament director. I know the guy and I respect him for his sincerity, for his honesty, and for his openness to feedback. I figured this type of feedback is gotta be killing him. I called him.
I wanted to find out his side of the story because I wasn’t at Apache and only have the posts. I wanted to find out what he was going to do. Was he going to reply? Will he make changes? What went wrong? He and I spoke for 45 mins to an hour. Actually he might tell you I grilled him with questions. Here’s what I found out in my conversation with the ABF tourney director FYI..
There’s no one that feels worse about the weigh-in than him. He’s been reading the posts on AZBZ but hasn’t replied because he knows he cannot do so unemotionally. He doesn’t agree with some of the statements made and doesn’t want his posts to appear as if he is discrediting people.
I found out how he normally sets up the scales. If AC power is available, like at the Lake Pleasant marina, he runs the AC extension cord to the weigh-in table, ties the extension cord to the table leg so it doesn’t get pulled out and then plugs a "transformer" into the AC. (The "transformer" is an AC to DC converter.) The "transformer" produces DC voltage and both the scale and big LED display are plugged into the "transformer". If there is no AC power available, like at Roosevelt or Apache or Bartlett, then he has a large 12 volt lead acid battery which he connects to an Inverter to produce AC power, and then runs the power to the scales as above. If he has to set up the weigh-in table on uneven ground, he carries a small shovel to move some dirt or sand to get the scale sitting as level as possible. He knows the scale is not accurate if its tilted. Once the scale, table, and power is set up he zeroes the scale and makes sure its working. The scale has been re-calibrated within the last year. (I was surprised to hear that costs more than $200.) He’s run tests at home using a 5 lb weight. Set up the scale, zero it, add 5 lb weight, it reads 5.0 lbs. Power it down, power it back up, zero it, add 5 lb weight, it reads 5.0 lbs. It’ll do it every time. Sounds to me like a good scale.
I checked the posted tourney results. There’s one piece of data that tells me there was something wrong with the scale at some point in time during the weigh in at Apache. Two teams weighed 1 fish. One teams fish weighed .6 lbs, the other fish weighed .55 lbs. There’s a 13 inch minimum length. A 13 inch LM weighs at least 1 lb. This tells me something happened to the scale at some point in time.
So I asked him to go over everything that happened at Apache pertaining to the weigh in. Friday night he was un-packing and knowing he would have no AC power he checked his big lead/acid battery. It was dead. Even though it had been recharged, it was dead. He had a smaller 12v battery as a backup. About the size of a motorcycle battery it would power the scale but not have enough juice for the big LED scale display. Could this have been the problem with the scale? Maybe not a high enough voltage to give accurate weights? My answer, as a retired electrical engineer who knows this stuff, is no. I expect the scales are designed to detect the input voltage, and will not turn on if the voltage is too high, too low or the polarity is reversed. Same as the fish finder on your boat, your cell phone or hand held GPS. The scale will operate normally over a range of DC voltages.
During the day, before weigh-in, he was notified he could not hold his weigh-in at the beach where he normally holds it. There were kids swimming. The last thing any tourney director wants is to have kid meet prop blade so he accepted the alternative location. For lack of a better description, I’ll call it "the grassy knoll". I’ve been to the marina and am familiar with the knoll. Someone posted its 25 feet above the water! That’s a TWO AND A HALF STORY BUILDING high! No way, in my opinion, is it that high. I’m remembering 10 feet high, maybe 12 feet max. I asked the tourney director how high he thought it is. He had walked down to the water and looked up, he could still see people’s shoes who were standing close to the edge. He says its 8 ft. Other posters said 10 feet. I’m with them, but its certainly not 25 feet high.
Back to the scales. Well before the first weigh-in time, the table was set up on a flat piece of ground on the grassy knoll, the scale set up and powered by the small 12v battery, powered up, zeroed and checked to see if it worked. What else might have affected the scales? New info here. During the weigh-in and before the re-zeroing of the scale due to the "big smally weight challenge", two people came around the backside of the scale table to see the weight. Remember, there was no big LED display for people to watch. The director had stepped away from the scale table and two people came around and stepped between the director and the scale to read the weight. That’s a no-no so he shooed them away, called off the weight, took the weigh-in basket and walked over and released the fish. He replaced the basket on the scale. Then he noticed the scale’s display was dark. The power cord was not connected to the scale. I asked him if he knew how that happened. He said "I don’t know but that doesn’t matter, its my fault I should have anticipated this and prevented it." He won’t say it but I will. I think one of the two people who went behind the table to peek at the weight tripped on the power cord on the way back around the table and shut the scale down. That was an accident that the director should have prevented either by preventing people from getting back there or tying down the power cord so it was neatly in place and out of the way. Bottom line is, early in the weigh-in, the scale lost power, was powered back up and re-zeroed. Based on his testing of the scale he could re-zero it without affecting anything. This is before director’s decision to re-zero the scale at the "big smally weight challenge".
I asked the director if he was rushed to reset the scale. He said no, there was no one in line or coming to the scale so he had plenty of time.
Before the weigh-in, he has a routine to set up the table, the power, the scale and a routine to zero the scale. I’m hypothesizing that when the power was lost to the scale this is a extraordinary, maybe even flustering event. Its not being done in his normal, careful pre-weigh-in routine. Could he have easily made an error re-zeroing the scale under those conditions. My opinion is yes. Did he re-check the table was level or the scale moved freely? Maybe not. My opinion is this is likely the time the scales went off.
I asked the director about the "big smally weight event". He says he was weighing in a big smally and called out the weight and the angler said that fish is bigger than a 2.8. Says he looked again at the fish and thought to himself ‘Gee that does look like a big smalley! What’s up here?’ I asked him why he decided to re-zero the scale. He said "I want to do what’s right".
Damn! That’s a heart breaker.
I asked the director what is he planning to do in the future? He’s thinking about asking anglers to stick around for a meeting after the MBC weigh in to discuss the issues. (I’ll give him credit for doing that, I don’t know any other tournament director who would consider getting angler input) For sure he’s going to make some changes to his equipment and procedures. From what I’ve learned talking with him, I don’t think he’s inexperienced and he has been doing tournaments for five years. He’s demonstrated to me he knows what he’s doing at weigh-ins. Just sometimes your heart gets in the way of your head. He will do things to make sure the chances of this happening again are very, very small.
I wanted to find out his side of the story because I wasn’t at Apache and only have the posts. I wanted to find out what he was going to do. Was he going to reply? Will he make changes? What went wrong? He and I spoke for 45 mins to an hour. Actually he might tell you I grilled him with questions. Here’s what I found out in my conversation with the ABF tourney director FYI..
There’s no one that feels worse about the weigh-in than him. He’s been reading the posts on AZBZ but hasn’t replied because he knows he cannot do so unemotionally. He doesn’t agree with some of the statements made and doesn’t want his posts to appear as if he is discrediting people.
I found out how he normally sets up the scales. If AC power is available, like at the Lake Pleasant marina, he runs the AC extension cord to the weigh-in table, ties the extension cord to the table leg so it doesn’t get pulled out and then plugs a "transformer" into the AC. (The "transformer" is an AC to DC converter.) The "transformer" produces DC voltage and both the scale and big LED display are plugged into the "transformer". If there is no AC power available, like at Roosevelt or Apache or Bartlett, then he has a large 12 volt lead acid battery which he connects to an Inverter to produce AC power, and then runs the power to the scales as above. If he has to set up the weigh-in table on uneven ground, he carries a small shovel to move some dirt or sand to get the scale sitting as level as possible. He knows the scale is not accurate if its tilted. Once the scale, table, and power is set up he zeroes the scale and makes sure its working. The scale has been re-calibrated within the last year. (I was surprised to hear that costs more than $200.) He’s run tests at home using a 5 lb weight. Set up the scale, zero it, add 5 lb weight, it reads 5.0 lbs. Power it down, power it back up, zero it, add 5 lb weight, it reads 5.0 lbs. It’ll do it every time. Sounds to me like a good scale.
I checked the posted tourney results. There’s one piece of data that tells me there was something wrong with the scale at some point in time during the weigh in at Apache. Two teams weighed 1 fish. One teams fish weighed .6 lbs, the other fish weighed .55 lbs. There’s a 13 inch minimum length. A 13 inch LM weighs at least 1 lb. This tells me something happened to the scale at some point in time.
So I asked him to go over everything that happened at Apache pertaining to the weigh in. Friday night he was un-packing and knowing he would have no AC power he checked his big lead/acid battery. It was dead. Even though it had been recharged, it was dead. He had a smaller 12v battery as a backup. About the size of a motorcycle battery it would power the scale but not have enough juice for the big LED scale display. Could this have been the problem with the scale? Maybe not a high enough voltage to give accurate weights? My answer, as a retired electrical engineer who knows this stuff, is no. I expect the scales are designed to detect the input voltage, and will not turn on if the voltage is too high, too low or the polarity is reversed. Same as the fish finder on your boat, your cell phone or hand held GPS. The scale will operate normally over a range of DC voltages.
During the day, before weigh-in, he was notified he could not hold his weigh-in at the beach where he normally holds it. There were kids swimming. The last thing any tourney director wants is to have kid meet prop blade so he accepted the alternative location. For lack of a better description, I’ll call it "the grassy knoll". I’ve been to the marina and am familiar with the knoll. Someone posted its 25 feet above the water! That’s a TWO AND A HALF STORY BUILDING high! No way, in my opinion, is it that high. I’m remembering 10 feet high, maybe 12 feet max. I asked the tourney director how high he thought it is. He had walked down to the water and looked up, he could still see people’s shoes who were standing close to the edge. He says its 8 ft. Other posters said 10 feet. I’m with them, but its certainly not 25 feet high.
Back to the scales. Well before the first weigh-in time, the table was set up on a flat piece of ground on the grassy knoll, the scale set up and powered by the small 12v battery, powered up, zeroed and checked to see if it worked. What else might have affected the scales? New info here. During the weigh-in and before the re-zeroing of the scale due to the "big smally weight challenge", two people came around the backside of the scale table to see the weight. Remember, there was no big LED display for people to watch. The director had stepped away from the scale table and two people came around and stepped between the director and the scale to read the weight. That’s a no-no so he shooed them away, called off the weight, took the weigh-in basket and walked over and released the fish. He replaced the basket on the scale. Then he noticed the scale’s display was dark. The power cord was not connected to the scale. I asked him if he knew how that happened. He said "I don’t know but that doesn’t matter, its my fault I should have anticipated this and prevented it." He won’t say it but I will. I think one of the two people who went behind the table to peek at the weight tripped on the power cord on the way back around the table and shut the scale down. That was an accident that the director should have prevented either by preventing people from getting back there or tying down the power cord so it was neatly in place and out of the way. Bottom line is, early in the weigh-in, the scale lost power, was powered back up and re-zeroed. Based on his testing of the scale he could re-zero it without affecting anything. This is before director’s decision to re-zero the scale at the "big smally weight challenge".
I asked the director if he was rushed to reset the scale. He said no, there was no one in line or coming to the scale so he had plenty of time.
Before the weigh-in, he has a routine to set up the table, the power, the scale and a routine to zero the scale. I’m hypothesizing that when the power was lost to the scale this is a extraordinary, maybe even flustering event. Its not being done in his normal, careful pre-weigh-in routine. Could he have easily made an error re-zeroing the scale under those conditions. My opinion is yes. Did he re-check the table was level or the scale moved freely? Maybe not. My opinion is this is likely the time the scales went off.
I asked the director about the "big smally weight event". He says he was weighing in a big smally and called out the weight and the angler said that fish is bigger than a 2.8. Says he looked again at the fish and thought to himself ‘Gee that does look like a big smalley! What’s up here?’ I asked him why he decided to re-zero the scale. He said "I want to do what’s right".
Damn! That’s a heart breaker.
I asked the director what is he planning to do in the future? He’s thinking about asking anglers to stick around for a meeting after the MBC weigh in to discuss the issues. (I’ll give him credit for doing that, I don’t know any other tournament director who would consider getting angler input) For sure he’s going to make some changes to his equipment and procedures. From what I’ve learned talking with him, I don’t think he’s inexperienced and he has been doing tournaments for five years. He’s demonstrated to me he knows what he’s doing at weigh-ins. Just sometimes your heart gets in the way of your head. He will do things to make sure the chances of this happening again are very, very small.
IF THEY SAY 10-12, THEN WILL GO WITH THAT . 
