On July
17, 2013 we attended the Professional Abatement Contractors of New York (PACNY)
fishing derby. We decided to attend the
fishing derby because we've never fished for salmon before and going on a
fishing trip with the PACNY group sounded like a lot fun!
Well the
day started with a great sunrise (photo above), as we learned which boats we were on. We were placed on one of the two Cornerstone
Training Institute (CTI) boats. Our boat
was named the Irish Thunder with Captain Joe T. & First Mate Charlie. Our
team consisted of Heather King of KBH, Chris Miller of LeChase, Kevin Hutton of
CTI, and ourselves.
Once we
were all on-board our respective boats , we headed out to the shotgun
start (see video above). Which means all the boats line up
straight across & when the bell is rung the boats speed out to the fishing
areas. It was a very hot day and sun
shone brightly, meaning we were thankful for air movement. Captain Joe T. & First Mate Charlie, were
very experienced in finding fish and it wasn't long before we had our first
catch of the day. Ms. Heather King
reeled in the first fish. All of us took
turns reeling in fish, however, Mr. Chris Miller reeled in the first over 20
pound salmon. Which we all teased him in
how long it was taking him to bring the fish in (we would regret that
later). We were thankful to Mr. Kevin
Hutton for stocking his cooler with some really good local craft beers (thank
you!).
As you
can see above, we caught ourselves an over 20 pound king salmon. Catching a salmon is not an accurate
description of what actually took place.
A better description would be is having a tug-of-war with an unknown
opponent. Once you grab a hold of the
rod & reel you spend what feels like an eternity (actually 10-20 minutes)
of doing forearm curls. Pull the rod up,
then reel in excess line; pull the rod up, reel in the excess line; repeat,
repeat, repeat (now regretting teasing Chris about how long it took him to
bring the fish in). Just about the time
our arms were saying "we give up", the salmon appeared several yards
away from the boat. Giving us a second
wind to bringing the fish on board. When
we were a kid we remember a cartoon that likened fishing to pulling a drain
plug from the lake, we now get that cartoon.
Once the
derby was over we gathered at the Black North Inn for lunch, weigh-in, & the
awarding of the prizes. The scoreboard
above details the scores.
We had a
great time and hope to do this again.
Our team was fantastic and entertaining.
Our team won one of the prizes.
We also got to bring some salmon home for smoking & grilling (as you see above). It was the best salmon we ever ate.
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