That's a good point, Binh. I'm surprised to hear that some people fished several tournaments without joining, since in the long run, it's cheaper to join rather than pay the extra $5 or whatever the cost is now. Also, the membership fees help pay for BASS affiliation, which pays for the liability insurance. Not only does that allow the club to get permits at many of the lakes it fishes, but it's also important for protecting the interests of everyone in the club, especially those who have families, jobs & homes they're responsible for.

On the other hand, you don't want to discourage casual tubers who just want to give the club a try. If they're still on the fence after fishing a tournament, they may back off fishing another one if it's going to cost them an extra $40+. Also, guys who start fishing at the tail end of a season would have to join even though they don't have a realistic shot at making the TOC. Finally, the club has members who fish few, if any, tournaments, which kind of inflates the number of TOC qualifiers.

It wouldn't solve the issue you're bringing up, but maybe a compromise would be to charge a higher fee to non-members after they've fished their 1st tournament - at the current $5, someone could fish 7 tournaments & still come out slightly ahead. Maybe it should be increased to $10 or $15 to reduce the "free rider" issue.

Thanks for posting on this.