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Smallmouth Open Wide For The Kids
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Posted Saturday, July 6th, 2002 to The Bass Pro Diary
The first kid's fishing derby gets under way, but the variety of fish aren't sleeping on this river bed, and some decent sized smallmouth got a rude awakening!
July 6, 2002
Today was the first official kid’s multi-species fishing derby with New Life Family Worship Center, a city of Milwaukee church that I have been blessed to help out with in their youth department. The derby was held on the Milwaukee River, in a northern Milwaukee County city called Thiensville. The Thiensville park offered a nice long stretch of river, full of small pan fish, and a dam that had a strong attraction for Northern Pike and bass at its base.
We officially kicked off the derby at 11:30 am, and in a matter of minutes a seven year old set the hook into the mouth of an almost three pound carp. Not the ideal fish to be catching, but in a multi-species tournament - it got him off to a strong start (he is currently tied for 1st place in his age group)! The carp wound up being caught in one of the two “honey holes” that the youth had managed to locate throughout the day. This spot was nothing more than a hole located about 1/3 of the way across the river, and covered an area of maybe 20 square feet. It dropped about four feet from the surrounding bed around it. Kids managed to pull some smallmouth (tiny ones) and some rock bass out of the same hole. We managed to definitely locate the hole, as one of our adult counselors decided to wade into the river, and sank from waist deep to shoulder deep!
The other hot spot was directly at the base of the dam. The kids (and adults) were fishing here using live worms for bait, along with a bobber. Two hearty smallmouth were pulled up, each in excess of 15 inches, one of which was caught by one of the teenagers participating in the derby (his only fish for the day, but by far the best quality fish of the entire derby). The one fish was enough to land him into 4th place in his age group, tied for the spot with another young angler.
The northern pike that was brought in was the second fish of the day, and was caught on one of the same worms that the smiles were being caught on. Bluegill were caught at various points throughout the day, and were almost all caught on wax worms. I do not believe that there was a single fish caught today on any type of artificial lure.
All together, out of the 24 kids that participated, only eight of them had the pleasure of landing at least one fish. Those who were successful in hooking a fish had the time of their lives, and even the youth who did not catch fish are excited for the next fishing derby coming up on the 20th of this month. We also made sure to provide lunch for all of the children at the event, as well. Some of the kid’s mothers were on site to grill hot dogs and pour sodas.
Now I need to get myself psychology prepared for the up-coming 2002 Canadian Open next week. I will be hitting the road on Wednesday so I can be there for the pro registration period that evening. I will fish (for sure) on Thursday for practice, and Friday and Saturday for competition. Sunday will be another day of competition, should I place within the top 51 pro anglers for the first two days.
Curt S. Strutz
The “Bassmeister”
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