The day before the first Cabot Local 4544 hosted fishing tournament. The weather was beautiful on Greer’s Ferry Lake and some pre-fishing gave a few teams some good confidence for the first annual event. Tournament Director, Nick Karras, and the event staff were fearful of the weather that had yet to come. The news called for severe thunderstorms through-out the night and here we are camping in tents the night prior to the tournament. The storms didn’t come until after we all had fallen asleep, but once they started nobody got any rest the remainder of the night. 4:00 am came early that next morning.

May 9^th, 2009 – Here it is the morning of our first annual fishing tournament. The lack of sleep didn’t seem to bother the staff this morning. The storm passed and stars were able to be seen from the check-in site. Maybe there was still hope to have a good turn-out of participants. A few anglers arrived and asked if we were still having the tournament. With the weather now at bay the tournament would continue. Although the weather was calm, the booth set-up and event staff ready for launch, the 2009 Charity Tournament only had six teams compete. Falling short of our hopeful 30 team mark the tournament still proved to be a success! Weigh-in was at 2:00 pm at the Devil’s Fork Recreation Area, specifically at the Fishing Tournament Center. The helpful member from the Greer’s Ferry Chamber of Commerce who attended to our every need during the weigh-in was an invaluable asset. A few full 5-fish stringers were weighed and so began the raffle for the many prizes while the results were totaled. I believe everybody who came to the weigh-in did not go home empty handed.  The raffle consisted of many prizes from small fishing lures, jigs, weights, fishing nets on up to the grand prize rod and reel combo. All of the prizes would not have been without the great sponsors we have.

Needless to say the 2009 Tournament did not meet the goals and further work had to be done to make the 2010 event more successful.

Thanks to everyone who participated in 2009 hope to see you next year!