2008 - 12th Annual Tournament
Another Really Great Tournament!
Save Rodman Reservoir, Inc. has hosted tournaments with more boats registered (127 this year), tournaments in which more fish were caught (208 this year), and tournaments where we had a bigger bar-b-que crowd, but it will be hard to top this year's tournament for all around pleasure. Except for a little wind in the afternoon the weather was just great. Weather forecasters had promised showers, but they never came. A few clouds rolled in in the afternoon, but all they did was temper the hot afternoon sun and make things more comfortable.
Everything and everyone was in place by 3:30 Saturday morning to help the fishermen register for the tournament,
buy their raffle tickets,
launch their boats and
get breakfast before the tournament start at first light.
Where were the fishermen? We had pre-registered fifty-eight boats and at 03:30 it looked like that might be the tournament, but things changed soon. Bass rigs were lined up all the way from the parking lot entrance to the ramp by 04:00.
The parking lot began to fill up, and they just kept
coming. Before it was over we registered 127 boats for the tournament.
Meanwhile, live wells were being inspected for proper operation as the boats were being launched.
Jerry Stulvey's sausage, eggs and grits breakfast was being served by Robert and Nancy Stumpe and Dan Carter.
Linda and Vernan Myers had coffee and donuts from their Dunkin Donuts store to go with the sausage, eggs and grits.
We were treated by Mother Nature with a special pleasure this year. A full moon shown down on Kenwood as folks were enjoying breakfast.
When you get up at 2:00 in the morning and stager around getting ready to help at the tournament you think, "I really need to have my head examined for doing this." Once you arrive at Kenwood, things start to look a little more possible, but after breakfast the world looks just fine. When the boats fill the basin and everyone is enjoying the morning, nothing could be better.
At first light tournament director Ed Taylor led off the first flight of boats for the tournament. Only fifty boats have room to park in the inner basin at Kenwood Landing so all boats with first come first serve registration numbers over fifty must wait in the outer basin. Also, to make things fair, the boats are divided into flights of twenty five boats each with weigh-in deadlines staggered fifteen minutes apart. This procedure allows fishermen who get to the water later the same fishing time as those who start earlier, and it has the added advantage of preventing all the boats from arriving at the weigh-in the same time and causing one gigantic traffic jam in the boat basin.
Once the fishermen are on the water the area around the basin feels like a ghost town compared to just a few moments before. There is just time to rest a bit before shifting from registration and breakfast mode to bar-b-que, weigh-in and raffle mode. Jerry Stalvey must prepare his wonderful chicken and pork bar-b-que while the registration tent becomes the Save Rodman Reservoir information and raffle ticket sales tent.
All the electric lighting that was necessary during the night must come down and be packed away. Registration information must be entered into a database so that after the weigh-in the winners can be quickly determined. Preparations for the raffle are completed and raffle prizes must be sorted and donor's names attached. If everything works out right the work gets done about noon, the same time the bar-b-que is ready to eat.
The walk in visitors start to arrive about noon too which gives them time to enjoy lunch and visit until the first boats arrive for the start of the weigh-in at 3:00 PM .
As the crowd gathered for the weigh-in, one of our longtime Rodman supporters, Linda Myers, who is running for the Democratic nomination for district 21 Florida House of Representatives, said a few words to the crowd and vowed her further support for the reservoir. Her Republican opponent, Charles Van Zant, was also present circulating through the crowd and voicing his support for the reservoir.
All of the Putnam County Commissioners supported our tournament. Commissioner Ed Taylor who is the president of Save Rodman Reservoir, Inc. was the tournament director. Commissioners Nancy Harris and Chip Laibl were in attendance; Commissioner Hermon Summers fished the tournament, and Commissioner Brad Purcell contributed $100 dollars in raffle prize money even though he couldn't attend.
The weigh-in team does a terrific job every
year. Mike Ditto, assisted by David Long, handled the emcee and fish weighing job on stage. Chuck O'Conner measured the fish and inspected them to be sure they were all alive.
Scott Smith records the weight and boys from the Palatka Jr. Anglers carred the fish back to the Florida Fish And Wildlife (FWC) release boat to be returned to the waters of the reservoir to be fished for and caught another day.
We are thankful for the assistance of the FWC in properly handling and releasing the fish and making sure that the fish are not too stressed.
While Ed Taylor inspected weigh-in data, determined the winners and wrote the checks, the raffle was underway. There are always pickup-loads of prizes to be raffled off. Of course, the main raffle prize of a $1000.00 trolling motor donated by S & A Leisure of Welatka is always sought after by raffle ticket holders, but there are so many really nice things to raffle all the way from cases of paper products to rods and reels. A list of the businesses and supporters of Rodman who donate prizes for the raffle is listed later in the newsletter.
As soon as Ed Taylor finished his paper work he was ready to award the winners with their trophies and checks. We had eighteen winners based on the net weight of their catch this year. See page five for the list and pictures of the winners. We only had three penalties for dead fish this year so the gross weight and the net weight was the same in most cases. That is pretty good considering only three dead fish out of all the fish that were caught.
Only one more thing to do before it was time to pack up and call it a day for another year and that was to auction the boat from Millers Boating Center. Unfortunately, no one was prepared to place an opening bid on the boat this year.
The cleanup crew swung into action, and controlled chaos reins for the next hour as tents are folded up and equipment was packed on trailers and into pickup trucks. Thrash was collected and another wonderful tournament is brought to a close. (The circus has nothing on us)
We are very grateful to the Office of Greenways and Trails and especially Brad Merry the Park Ranger for their use of the facilities and the cooperation they give in preparing the area and handling the trash
Winners
Wally Grant sponsors the small boat competition. He awards Arkie and Tercel Mullins the $500 prize, the second year in a row.
Robert & Tracy Black won for the second year the $100 awarded for the smallest fish weighed in. Theirs was 1.64 pounds this year.
"Once in a while you see something that makes it all worth while."
Tercel Mullins
Justin Eastman
Here are all the fish weighed in.
| Boat # | Small Boat | Total Weight | Net Weight | Big Fish | Boater 1st Name | Boater 2nd Name | Partner 1st Name | Partner 2nd Name |
Our sincere thanks to all these sponsors who helped make our 12th bass tournament a great success.
2008 TOURNAMENT CONTRIBUTORS
Wally Grant (Gainsville) (Small Boat Compitition Sponcer)
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2008 TOURNAMENT
HELPING HANDS |
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Our sincere thanks to all the Save Rodman supporters who worked so very hard to make our tenth annual bass tournament a success. Here are the names of some of these dedicated folks.
Tournament Director: Ed Taylor
Security & Traffic Control: Putnam Co. Sheriff's Department
Park Maintenance: Merry, Brad - Park Ranger
| Set-Up | ||
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| Parking | ||
| Sheriff's Auxiliary | Underwood, Tommy | |
Tournament Registration
|
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Sosa, Danny |
Boat Inspection : Taylor Jr., Ed & O'Conner, Karl
Breakfast
| Andry, Kae | Sosa, Mary |
Afternoon Raffle Ticket Sales
| Andry, Kae | Snow, Lou |
| Patton, Patt | Sosa, Mary |
Bar-B-Que
Stumpe, Justin - Bar-B-Q Server
Stumpe, Nancy - Bar-B-Q Server
Stumpe, Robert - Bar-B-Q Server
Greene, Shirley - Soft Drink Sales
| Stalvey, Jerry | Stalvey, Sarah |
Weigh-In Crew
| Andry, Kae | Snow, Lou |
| Patton, Patt | Sosa, Mary |
Afternoon Raffle ticket Sales &
| Patton, Patt | Snow, Lou | Sosa, Mary |
Clean-Up
| Andry, Bob | O'Conner, Karl |
| Andry, Kae | Snow, Lou |
| Carter, Dan | Sosa, Danny |
| Gaboriau, Pierre | Sosa, Mary |
| Lawson, Charlie | Taylor Jr, Ed |
| O'Connor, Charles | Taylor, Ed |
