From my own experience, if you get off your backside and do some hard yards, the impossible becomes a reality. There are no excuses in my mind, not a single reason that anyone can't win, having the right attitude from the start and researching is a good place to begin.

There are competitions around the country in places that I have never fished before, and won them. Thats not because I just rocked up with home advantage, thats because after a few years of time on the sand I know exactly what the target species are going to take bait wise and the areas those fish will be. It is not rocket science. The landscape may change, but the concepts remain the same. I feel you are looking into it to much.

One thing that seems to be getting common is guys looking at the easy option. Putting things in the to hard basket and wanting it easier. Pegged out competition, small boundarys, restricted baits, ( In my opionion ) these are rubbish. Part of surfcasting and being successful is having allot of options. Some baits work on some days, some areas work better on some days, some days you make a bad call and you get punished, some days you make a good call and get rewarded. Removing options removes opportunity for fisho's to use their top two inches and make calls for the good or bad. Fishing one area all with the same bait and rigs has no merit, no skill, no decisions, everthing is removed, where is the fun in that, you don't even get to think. I personally couldn't think of anything more boring, its "giving up".

As for rays and sharks, they are the easiest species to catch on the beaches. They become more difficult to land that other species, given some have teeth and some have big wings, but as a species, they are easy to target and hook. A snapper, far more difficult to hook, allot easier to land, so there is a balance of merit there. For me personally, I wouldn't want top prize going to a shark, because they are only a shark, I don't eat em and it is encouraging people to catch, weigh and destroy fish that should really be put back and left alone. I would cringe if I came to a weigh in and saw 30 massive rays slaughtered for nothing, at least the snapper can be eaten ( Not many people eat rays and a big one would be more than enough for an army, let alone 30)

Once a little girl during a competition in Parangahau pulled in a 1.3kg gurnard. There is far more merit in that prized fish than a shark or ray. Thats a trophy fish. If a run of the mill 5kg lemonfish beat that, I would be thinking, your kidding me? ( Taking into account where the fishing was also)

Anyhow, im starting to ramble, long story short, if you feel your not up for a competition, don't enter, but don't stand back and try and water it down by removing the challenge. Some of you may want to put me to the sword for those comments, but there are other things out there that may suit you better?

Have you considered bingo? bridge?

On a constructive side, I wouldn't suggest altering the field to make things easier for some, I would look at moving the goal posts. A common concept now days is average weight. Over big contests allot of contestants weight good fish. Most right from the outset know that there fish is not big enough to win, and are already thinking " where not going to catch a snapper bigger than 8kg!". Whilst the largest fish holds the most merit, adding a combined weight bag or average weight fish prize and making it substantial ( as in a second place kind of prize) would include all the punters from the competition that caught a fish.

The snapper bonaza up north have done this concept well