TPFR Bluegill Tournament Winners!!!!!!!!

[Trent Jones]

The first annual TPFR Bluegill Tournament, weigh in, and medal ceremony have concluded!!

21 intrepid anglers braved the hottest day of the year to embark on a 24 hour "blugill" catching competition (we use the term bluegill as broadly as it has ever been used). The competition was stiff. I must admit I am quite impressed with the accomplishments of our winners. Some of the winning fish were winners by no more than a 1/16 of an inch!!! We used an extremely complicated system of algorithms to procure the prettiest fish winner...to make sure myself, Dalton, Kyle, and Bob didn't mess it up, we brought in Daltons Fiancé Molly to confirm the winner.

Our 2016 TPFR Bluegill Tournament winners are:

Prettiest Fish - Andrew Sarinello

runner up Kevin Eichinger

Largest Fish - Steven Butler 8 3/8''

runner up Trent Jones 8 1/4"

Smallest Fish - Darin Burris 2 3/8"

runner up Kevin Eichinger 2 5/16"

Most Fish - Andrew Sarinello 220 Fish

runner up Kevin Eichinger 127 Fish

Congratulations to our winners!

Our winners did get to take home some sweet hardware for there efforts, beer bottle opener medals with out TPFR logo on the front and the category winner etched in the back. Huge bragging rights that they can literally wear at beer ties, home, the office, weddings, bar mitzvah's, while traveling abroad, in the shower, at the gym....lots of places.

Before our medal ceremony Bob Smith informed us that he is in the process of rejuvenating his old business Blue Collar Cane, and that he would be donating on behalf of his company a sweet Herters 3 piece 6/7 wt glass rod with a Cortland Click/Pawl reel. In the spirit of the old school rod and blue collar cane we found a brand outdated Orvis Clearwater line to match with the outfit.  We were torn on who should be awarded this old school glass rod....after looking at the final standings the answer was clear. Kevin Eichinger was runner up in 3 of the 4 categories. He was so close to glory so many times that we felt compelled to honor his efforts with this gorgeous glass rod. Way to go Kevin! 

I have attached photos of the winning and runner up fish as well as some celebratory shots of our winners, medal ceremony, and glass rod. The parting shot is of Luke Fleeger. When I saw this photo I was immediately envious because it just looked like a cool place to be and I had never been their before. It should remind all of us that even a bluegill can take us on a small adventure to somewhere new. Thank you Fleegers for participating and for sharing your photos! Also a huge thanks to King Street Blues for hosting us, and Bob Smith for donating a great rod and reel.  Thank you to all of our participants as well as the greater TPFR community. We will see everyone next year for the 2nd Annual!!!

-Trent Jones

[Misha Gill]

I wish I hadn't been flying back from California yesterday or I would have gotten in on the action... Congrats to the winners, let's do it again!

[Bob Smith]

Looking forward to next years tournament. If it ain't too hot I know a pond....

[Andrew Sarcinello]

Thanks TPFR for organizing this tournament, had a blast! Already looking forward to next year's - and seeing someone (hopefully me, muahaha) beat the 220 mark I put up this year!

For anyone looking for some absurd panfish action - I highly recommend Cub Run near Chantilly. It's a fairly small, shallow stream that you can wet wade easily. Where I fished it, there aren't many bass or other predator fish of any significant size so the sunfish have completely taken over. Friday I fished about 100 yards of water and caught 117 in 3 hours. I fished another 3 hours saturday late morning/early PM on a different section and caught another 103. Caught about 50% redbreast and the other half evenly split between green sunfish, bluegills, and green x bluegill hybrids. Despite my lobbying for rock bass I did not catch any!

Fly of choice was an unweighted green weenie. I tied a second nymph on behind that for the last hour on Saturday - and doubled up probably a half dozen times. One thing that got reinforced to me this weekend is that sunfish are insanely competitive with each other. The worst thing in the world to them is another sunfish taking their food, very entertaining.

I got some video footage on the gopro that I'll try to post - it ended up in the water, and seems to be toast, but I was able to recover about half of the video from the memory card.

Again, fun time and want to see what happens next year!

[Gary Fleeger]

Can't wait to see the footage! You have bragging rights for a whole year...not bad. Maybe they should consider a ridiculous title belt, WWF style, instead of a classy medal.

[namfos]

No. It should be a fully bronzed fishing style fanny pack. And if you're the champ, you have to wear for the entirety of the next year's tournament. 

Mark

[Andrew Sarcinello]

Hahaha! I think a prize like that should be reserved for a true accomplishment, like maybe sweeping all 4 medals or catching the elusive 20" bluegill.

[Bob Smith]

If there was a Grand Champion category there could be something like the Stanley Cup. The winner keeps it for a year and give it to the next champion.

Sent from my iPad

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[namfos]

That works!

[namfos]

Ages ago, June 1997 to be precise, I had the privilege to attend the 3rd Trout Bum BBQ in Grayling, Michigan on the banks of the Holy Water (and where Trout Unlimited was founded) There was one group of regulars from St. Louis, generally referred to as the Fishheads, who started the tradition of awarding a polystyrene foam cooler (one of those dirt cheap ones from a convenience store) to some deserving soul. Said recipient was expected to bring it back to award it to the next year's winner. By the time I made it to TBBBQ III, it was already in pieces, probably broken up to qualify as a carry-on or to fit in one. ;-)

Mark