A great start to a great week!

I watched early Sunday morning as 28 young people accompanied by their parents bounced in under the tent at the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship, With their fishing rods firmly in one hand, their tackle boxes in the other and either mom and dad carrying their packsacks filled with water, rain gear, sun screen , shyly they approached the table to find out who they were fishing with in the KidPro.
The suspense had kept many awake half the night, waiting for morning to come.
Meanwhile, the pos were launching their boats. Once tied up at the docks and they just as eagerly came in to register. They were anxious to find their young partners and get the day under way.
The two groups began searching each other out. Kids sought out their pros and the pros found their kids. With introductions to parents, each got to know one another. And before you knew it, time signaled the mark to load the boats, and proceed to the start.
By eight in the morning, the last of the teams had been introduced and dispatched.
Parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles vacated the tent and moments later a gust of rain blew through the site area. The anglers were well clear of the weather and were headed off to find fish.
By mid afternoon, those parents who had trusted their kids to the anglers began reassembling under the tent, or lining the walkways watching for the boats that their children had left in. With high pitched whines, and water rooster tails spraying from behind, the boats raced down the river back to the marina just as anglers would race back at the end of the day in tournament fishing.
The teams pulled into the docks and were immediately greeted by excited parents with hundreds of questions. But first the kids had to deliver their cameras and catching results to the weigh master who calculated the weight of each fish caught based on length.
And then the wait was on. The anglers had taken lots of pictures, and on return received bags of lures, a hat and more when they checked in.
One might expect that the young anglers would be hungry on returning after spending seven hours on the water, but the anticipation of who might win was too unsettling to eat. For some the period was as agonizing as waiting for Christmas to arrive.
For the young anglers it seemed to take forever. For parents, it was a moment to ask more questions. For the pros, it was a chance to exchange information or misinformation about what they had been doing on the water.
Everyone caught fish. They caught the bass and there were no shabby fish recorded. The sizes would make any tournament team proud.
The memories - well if you asked any of the young anglers, what they would remember from the day; their faces just lit up like a 300 watt light bulb.
It was a great start to the tournament week.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher