Bug-Catching Contest

The Bug-Catching Contest (Japanese: むしとりたいかい Bug-Catching Contest) is a competition held every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in Johto's National Park. The Bug-Catching Contest was introduced in , and makes a return in .
==In the games==
===Rules===
There is no entry fee for the Bug-Catching Contest. Anyone may enter once per day, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
To compete, Trainers must the single best they can find. To do this, Trainers are given twenty Sport Balls (similar to Safari Balls; called "Park Balls" in Generation II), and they are only allowed to use a single Pokémon from their party. The rest of a Trainer's Pokémon remain with the contest officials until the competition is over. The player cannot save the game in the middle of the contest, nor can they use any items from the Bag, except for the limited purpose of giving their chosen Pokémon a held item.
Any Pokémon caught will be recorded in the Pokédex, but only one Pokémon can be kept to be judged. The Pokémon that is judged may be kept after the competition.
The competition ends when all the Sport Balls are used, the Trainer blacks out, the Trainer leaves the park, the Trainer chooses to quit the competition from the menu, or 20 minutes have passed. After that, the judging will occur, in which Trainers are scored on their skills of capturing rare and powerful Pokémon. In Generation II, judging takes place inside the gate to/from , while in Generation IV, judging takes place in front of the fountain in the middle of the National Park.
===Pokémon available===
====Generation II====
* and , as well as / and its evolutionary relatives can only be caught during the Bug-Catching Contest. All the others can be caught in the wild outside the contest.
====Generation IV====
When generating Pokémon's IVs, the game will reroll the numbers up to 4 times if none of the IVs are at 31.
=====Pre-National Pokédex=====
These Pokémon are available in Contests held every day pre-National Pokédex, and on Tuesdays post-National Pokédex (denoted by the levels indicated in the parentheses).
=====Post-National Pokédex=====
These Pokémon are only available in Contests held on Thursday and Saturday post-National Pokédex.
===Scoring===
====Generation II====
The score earned for a given Pokémon in Generation II is the sum of the following:
* 4 times the max HP of the Pokémon
* The sum of the Pokémon's other stats
* Up to 29 points based on the Pokémon's individual values:
** 16 points if half of the Defense IV (rounded down) results in an odd number, 0 otherwise
** 8 points if half of the Attack IV (rounded down) is odd, 0 otherwise
** 4 points if half of the Special IV (rounded down) is odd, 0 otherwise
** 1 point if half of the Speed IV (rounded down) is odd, 0 otherwise
*** If the player manages to find a Shiny Pokémon during the contest, it will be assured of earning all 29 of these points.
* 1/8 of the current HP of the Pokémon, rounded down
* 1 point if the Pokémon is holding an item, 0 otherwise
The maximum possible score in this version of the contest is 386, achieved by catching a level 14 with maximum IVs in every stat and without dealing more than 7 damage to it.
====Generation IV====
The score earned for a given Pokémon in Generation IV is the sum of the following:
* The level of the Pokémon relative to the maximum that can be found in the contest (e.g. before the National Pokédex, the maximum value for Paras would be 17, but after the National Pokédex, this would be 34), as a percentage
* The Pokémon's s relative to the maximum (186), as a percentage
* The Pokémon's relative to its maximum, as a percentage
* A rarity factor, either 60 (, , , , , , , or ), 80 (all Pokémon not mentioned), or 100 ( or )
Therefore, the maximum possible score in this version of the contest is 400, achieved by catching Scyther or Pinsir at either level 14 or 28 (whichever is available), with maximum IVs in every stat, and without dealing any damage to it.
===Competitors===
These are the competitors found in the Contest.
* Nick/Ace Trainer Abby
* William
* Samuel
* Barry
* Ed
* Benny
* Josh
* Don
*/School Kid Kipp
* Cindy
====Scores====
=====Generation II=====
In the Generation II games, each NPC contestant has three possible base scores. Five of the ten NPCs are randomly chosen to appear in the contest, and each of them randomly receives one of their three base scores, plus a random bonus of up to 7 points.
The lowest score that can possibly take first place in this version of the contest is 264, which requires the randomly chosen NPCs to be Don, Ed, Samuel, Kipp, and Cindy and for them to receive their low-value scores.
Contestant	Pokémon	Score
Don 	 	300
Don 	 	285
Don 	 	226
Ed 	 	286
Ed 	 	251
Ed 	 	237
Nick 	 	357
Nick 	 	349
Nick 	 	368
William 	 	332
William 	 	324
William 	 	321
Benny 	 	318
Benny 	 	295
Benny 	 	285
Barry 	 	366
Barry 	 	329
Barry 	 	314
Cindy 	 	341
Cindy 	 	301
Cindy 	 	264
Josh 	 	326
Josh 	 	292
Josh 	 	282
Samuel 	 	270
Samuel 	 	282
Samuel 	 	251
Kipp 	 	267
Kipp 	 	254
Kipp 	 	259
===Prizes===
Place 	 	 	 	 	
Place 	 	 	 	 	
1st 	 	 	 	(pre-National Pokédex) 	(pre-National Pokédex)
1st 	 	 	 	Random Evolution stone(post-National Pokédex)	Random Evolution stone(post-National Pokédex)
2nd 	 	 	 	 	
3rd 	Gold Berry	Gold Berry	Gold Berry	 	
ConsolationPrize	 	 	 	 	
==In animation==
===Pokémon the Series===
========
In The Bug Stops Here, and competed in the Bug-Catching Contest. During the competition, Casey caught a , and her evolved into a . Ash won the competition with a , earning himself a Sun Stone. After the competition, he gave the Beedrill to Casey, being aware of her love for Pokémon with yellow and black stripes.
In , the Contest can be followed from a giant screen outside of the park. It also has several other notable differences from the games.
* Only the winner is allowed to keep the Pokémon they caught.
* No consolation prize is available, neither are there any sort of rewards for anybody other than the champion, whereas such prizes can be earned in the games.
* The contest implements strict age-limits: only children under 18 (16 in the dub) are allowed to participate.
==Trivia==
* The music used during the contest is a remix of the Kanto-based games' Bicycle music.
* In , the contest encounter data table has an unused 11th entry, for ranging from level 30 to 40.
* If Youngster Samuel catches a Pinsir in Generation II, it will receive a score between 282 and 289 points, but no Pinsir available during the contest can evaluate to a score lower than 293.
* After the obtains the National Pokédex and enters the contest on Thursdays and Saturdays in Generation IV, some of the other competitors may be announced as having caught a Pokémon in the Caterpie or Weedle lines, despite those Pokémon not being available to the player on those days.
* In Generation IV, if at the end of the contest the player has a full party and their newly captured Pokémon is sent to the PC, it is referred to as "Bill's PC" (as opposed to "Someone's PC") even if the player has not yet met Bill.
* In , when met at the National Park, Bugsy reveals that he's won the contest multiple times, explaining why he does not participate in it with the player.
==In other languages==
Category:Johto competitions
Category:Pokémon Gold and Silver
Category:Pokémon Crystal
Category:Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver
es:Concurso de captura de bichos
fr:Concours de Capture d'insecte
it:Gara Pigliamosche
ja:むしとりたいかい
zh:捕虫大赛