Looking for Michigan bass tournaments? MFTIS has you covered!

[djkimmel]

This has been talked about several times on GreatLakesBass.com but I thought I should probably put a dedicated post up with a link to the Michigan Fishing Tournament Information System (MFTIS) the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) Fisheries Division put up at the beginning of the 2016 fishing season. All bass tournaments are required by regulation to post their bass tournaments on the calendar application. The MDNR also wants your bass tournament results (required) after your event. This is important to the future of bass fishing management in Michigan, especially if we want still more opportunity! The MFTIS is owned by the State of Michigan MDNR Fisheries Division and managed/maintained by the State of Michigan IT division.

Go to the MFTIS: www.michigan.gov/fishingtournaments to start searching for Michigan bass tournaments by lake and by county for a date or date range. Scroll down below the introductory information, instructions and links to find the link to the actual application (link subject to change).

NOTE: Many bass tournaments are for club/members only so use the calendar to see who is fishing where, and to contact (if available) a tournament director/organizer of an event you're interested in to see if you are able to fish it. If is says 'Closed to public' it is for members only (though maybe you can join in some cases for the future). If it says 'Open to public' it is most likely an open tournament anyone can enter. Note: These settings only apply to 'fishing' the event. If you look up the Bassmaster Elite Series event in August you'll see it says 'Closed to public' this just means only the Elite Anglers can fish it, but ANYONE can attend the expo and weigh ins! That is encouraged of course!

You do not need a username/login (State of Michigan MILogin) to just search the MFTIS. You will need to acquire a State of Michigan MILogin user/password if you actually want to enter tournaments. There's a process to do that on the actual MFTIS application. The application is mobile-friendly.


Enter a Waterbody or County name on the screen and choose your date range. Then click SEARCH to start looking. If you type slow in the 'Waterbody or County' box a dropdown list of choices will pop up showing matching available lake/river and county names. Remember some waters cover multiple counties so different boat ramps on the same lake/river may be in different counties. The lake/river may be spelled different than you expect - Lake Saint Clair (the spelling in the app) is a good example. Tournament ramp locations on large waters and chains may be listed under and unexpected water body such as some events at Burt and Mullett Lakes (the Inland Waterway) may be listed under Cheboygan River or Indian River verses one of the actual lakes.

On the results page you can also search by scrolling around the map including zooming in and zooming out as long as you leave the 'Search as I move the map' option checked. Once you get it down, the MFTIS can help you plan your tournament schedule, or help you avoid a lake/river on the same day as maybe a large tournament event.

The MFTIS is NOT a reservation system. Anyone can enter an event even if another/other event(s) are already registered. All MDNR boat ramps are always first-come, first-serve to anyone! The MFTIS includes ALL boat ramps in Michigan known to host bass tournaments. Ramps on the MFTIS not managed by the MDNR are subject to the rules and regulations created by whatever governing body is responsible for the boat launch.

There's a mechanism to request the addition of a new ramp if you need it. Just make sure you look on the map first to see if the ramp you are looking for is already there. Remember that some ramps are known by common names (maybe several) that are not the official name of the ramp.

Coming up in 2018 ALL fishing tournaments in Michigan will be required to register their events on the MFTIS. The MFTIS has already been updated to allow for this - the new version of the program is live now. Another new addition now is that if another tournament director/organizer enters an event on a lake and date you are already registered on, he/she will get an email notice warning of possible conflict.

The MDNR will be producing overview summary results reports but your actual group's tournament results will be available only to you. The first summary report for 2016 has been recently produced and a link to the PDF report is available on the MDNR Fisheries Division intro page. You'll see this report is only a limited, high level summary of a few stats.