Well another great tournament my hat is off to the organizers!
They did a lot of work and it went off beautifully, lots of FREE food, I loved the fried snakehead nuggets and the bagget sandwich with grilled snakehead and gourmet sauce! MMMMM! There were free donuts and IPA beer too. Darn if more people knew about the free beer we would had to beat them off at the gate of the park!
Over 1500 lbs of snakeheads were caught mostly by bow fisherman(is that really fishing…I call it fish hunting, I do it too…just wondering I guess it’s just semantics) These boats just glide over the water and at night with all their lights going they look like UFO’s- very cool!
I watched as hundreds of pounds of dead snakeheads(rules all fish must be killed when landed- no live snakeheads) were weighed in and it was impressive…took over 2 hours! The rod and reel contestants of which I was one were a few but the top rod and reel team(2 guys) had over 60 lbs of fish, 11 in total which is a good day on the water this time of year! The #2 rod and reel team was a family event, Dad and daughter and Uncle with 45 lbs. and also 11 fish, just a bit smaller than the other team.
As a side note, Dad is the current world record holder for the largest snakehead ever caught, 17 lbs. 9 oz. which he caught last May in Quanico Creek, Virginia of his dock! That is where he liesurley fished this year for the tournament, a heck of lot easier than the hectic week-weekend I had and I got skunked! It was very cool to meet Louis and his family and see his cooler full of fish as we stood in the weigh-in line.
No snakeheads for me this time but thats’ why they call it ‘fishin’ and not ‘catchin”! I did get 3rd place in the Blue Catfish Division with an 8 lb 4 oz fish but then there were only 4 people to weigh in any catfish this year as it was the first year they had the catagory.
First place as a monster at 38 lbs big and ugly about 3 1/2 – 4 feet long! Second was a 20 pounder so I was never really in contention for any prize, LOL!
All in all I had a blast fishing all night in my new bass boat. But as I learned a bass boat is not the best boat to get into the lilly pads and fish, that is where the snakeheads were back deep in the pads not in the main current. A flat bottom boat, kayak, or canoe would have been much better and maybe got me on the board. Lesson learned I will be ready next year going back to my kayak! But I did catch 2 nice bass at 4 lbs each. (In addition to my catfish).
See ya’ll on river!
Dr D
For health tips or to hear my weekly radio show on natural health alternatives check out my other blogs, www.drdsays.net and www.totalchiro.net