2024 Berkley Online Perch Open

This tournament is brought to you by Berkley:

The Berkley story is deeply rooted in the idea of the American Dream. It is about humble beginnings and unexpected success. It’s about hard work, struggle, and tough times. And it’s about building partnerships to accomplish goals. Still, the story of Berkley is much more than the story of Berkley Bedell. It’s also the story of dedicated co-workers and loyal customers, who were equally willing to take risks.

It all began in Spirit Lake, Iowa, in June of 1937, when 16-year old Berkley Bedell took $50.00 from his paper route earnings to start a business selling his hand-tied flies to fishing tackle shops and vacationing anglers. In his upstairs bedroom, with hair clipped from the family dog, Stubby, and feathers from the backyard chickens, young Berkley crafted flies to entice local bluegill and bass from their underwater cover. The Berkley Fly Co. was founded.

By the time Berk graduated from high school in 1939, he was employing several area girls who made flies, silkworm gut, and cable wire leaders in their homes. The business soon outgrew Berk’s parent’s basement and living room. He expanded to the second floor of the local grocery store, using a tub filled with ice and a fan for air conditioning.

After attending the state university and serving in the Army Air Corps, Berk returned to Spirit Lake in 1945 to start Berkley and Company. The business focus was on its cable wire leaders. One evening, while reading Popular Science, Berk learned about a Connecticut company that was producing nylon-covered cable for sailboat rigging. After visiting their plant, he began to work on nylon-coated wire for use in fishing leaders. Soon, the Steelon? leader was introduced and production began in Spirit Lake. Shortly after this, the distinctive Berkley heart logo was designed with the slogan “nylon leader with a heart of stainless steel.”

Berk next became interested in extruding nylon monofilament fishing line. At that time, all nylon came from DuPont. After receiving a license from DuPont, Berk returned to Spirit Lake to begin work developing equipment to produce nylon. The initial extrusion equipment consisted of reclaimed washing machine wringers, bicycle wheels, and other homespun materials. Soon Berkley was marketing private brand mono as well as Dew Flex monofilament. Ongoing experimentation would soon yield the company’s breakthrough innovation – Trilene.

In 1959, Berkley introduced Trilene at about the same time DuPont introduced Stren. To help introduce the new line, Berk sent out thousands of sample spools of line and asked store owners to have their best fisherman try it on a spinning reel. Fishermen loved the line and it began the successful launch of Berkley Trilene.

The next four decades were a time of great growth for the company. In the 1960’s Berkley entered into the rod business, which lead to international expansion in the 1970’s. Soft plastic baits made an appearance in the 1980’s. The 1990’s through today have seen significant technology improvements in all of the Berkley products. From the beginning, Berkley has committed significant resources to research and development – a continuing strategy that has resulted in countless product innovations, including Berkley Trilene, the Lightning Rod, PowerBait, FireLine, and more recently Gulp!? and Gulp! Alive.

You can check out all products on the Berkley Website

Prize Pool

1st Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 750€

2nd Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 550€

3rd Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 400€

4th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 250€

5th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 250€

6th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 200€

7th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 150€

8th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 150€

9th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 150€

10th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 125€

11th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 125€

12th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 125€

13th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 100€

14th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 100€

15th Place: Berkley Prize Package = Total Value 100€

All prizes are directly sponsored by Berkley. Prizes are not tax free and anyone who is receiving prizes is responsible for the correct tax declaration.

LMLF Online Open Rules

General rules

Participation is only possible for registered users on luremasters.net with correctly entered profile data. The registration on the website is free. The participating angler must have a valid ticket for the event.
The local laws and rules (f.e. closed season, individual water rules etc.) on site must always be followed. Each participant is independently liable for his behavior on the water.
All fish must have been caught with the fishing rod by the competitor. No participation with fish from a fish farm/pay lake. Stocking fish is not allowed.
Competing anglers always agree to the Lure Masters Terms of use, the Privacy policy and the general tournament rules. Each competitor agrees to play fair and always respect all the local rules.

Scoring

Each participant can send in any number of catches during a tournament through the Lure Masters website. The longest fish are automatically scored for the leaderboards according to the event scoring rules.

Every angler can start in several tournaments at the same time. If a fish can be rated in several tournaments according to the announcement, the fish must be reported for the different tournaments. The same pictures can be sent in, but one after the other for each tournament in which the participant is listed on the leaderboard. The daily catch code is always valid on a calendar day for all tournaments running at the same time.
The participant must always be the catcher and he must be recognizable in the second picture. Each fish is only scored once for the first catcher per tournament.
Each fish must be reported by uploading it on luremasters.net with 2 pictures. Here is a good example:

1st picture: Fish on the measuring board

Only fish measured on the official Lure Masters measuring board will be scored. The daily catch code (3 numbers between 1-30) must be marked on the measuring board with the help of the clips provided. See video description. If the daily catch code is missing, the catch will be rejected. The daily catch code is available on luremasters.net on every calendar day from midnight, it is only valid on this calendar day. The code is the same for every tournament running on this day. In case an angler lost the clips, the daily catch code can be shown on a slip of paper or on the back of the hand. In these exceptional cases, catching is accepted until new clips are organized. The use of the LM measuring board is absolutely necessary, images with other measuring boards will not be scored. The correct daily catch code must always be visible on the measuring board picture, if not, the catch doesn’t count.

All centimeters at the upper edge of the measuring board must be consistently visible on the picture in order to make folding the board impossible.

The fish must always be photographed with the left side up. Pictures from the right side will be rejected.

The mouth of the fish must touch the bracket at the zero point of the measuring board. If this contact with the bracket is not recognizable, the catch will be rejected. The picture must clearly show that the fish is touching the bracket, for this it is imperative to photograph the fish straight from above, pictures with a distorting angle will be rejected.

Fish must lie on a flat surface on the measuring board. The fish can gently be fixed on the board with 1 or 2 hands. The fish cannot be bent to lengthen it. Anglers are not allowed to squeeze the tail to increase the length. If hands are too close to the tail or tails are squeezed, the catch will be rejected.
Before taking a picture, please wet the measuring board in order to protect the fish.

The field that touches the outermost tip of the tail is the specified length in full cm. If the tip of the tail is exactly on the line between two fields, the higher value counts.

If the full length of the fish can’t be seen in the picture with the measuring board, it will be rejected and not scored.

Heavily contaminated fish f. ex. sand, stones, leaves, blood or other kinds of injuries lead to rejection by LM admin. Exceptions are injuries that the fish has already had, such as bite marks or similar.

Pictures of poor quality due to blurring or other factors that mean that not everything is recognizable will be rejected and not counted.

The picture on the measuring board must always be taken immediately after the catch.

2nd picture: Angler with fish

The picture of the angler with the fish without the day code.

Always photograph the left side of the fish, the same side that was photographed on the measuring board, so that LM admin can check whether it is the same fish.

The face of the angler must be recognizable in each picture you sent in, we want to be sure, that the same person caught the fish.

The full length of the fish must be recognizable in the picture, if the end of the tail is not in the picture, the catch will not be score.

Heavily polluted fish f. ex. sand, stones, leaves, blood lead to rejection by LM admin. Exceptions are injuries that the fish has already had, such as f. ex. bite marks or similar.

Pictures of the angler with the fish only in natural surroundings.

The picture with the catcher must always be taken immediately after the catch.

Submission of catches

The angler in the picture must always be the catcher, if the participant cannot be recognized in the picture with the fish, the catch will be rejected.
Send in both pictures together, LM admin must be able to recognize that it is the same fish. Pictures must be submitted not later than 1:00 p.m. on the following calendar day. Photos submitted later will not be scored. We recommend sending pictures directly after catching, but it is also possible to send them later from a computer.
In the event of rejection, information is provided about the reason for the rejection, after which, if available, better pictures of the catch can be submitted by the deadline of the next calendar day at 1:00 p.m.
LM admin reserves the right to complete rejections. Due to time constraints, rejections are non-negotiable and must be accepted by the participant.

All approved catches can be rejected by LM admin until the final leaderboard has been confirmed during and at the end of each tournament, stating the reasons.

Sponsored prizes disclaimer

If, depending on the place of receipt, duties or taxes are incurred on prices, the recipient is responsible for the associated costs. LM and the sponsor of the prizes are not liable for any costs incurred in this context.