Summer Is the Best---Part V

After leaving the kids in Utah for Grandma and Grandpa to take care of, I went to the annual Redneck Fishing Tournament with Trevor and The Johnson's...it's not really a place for kids...a lot of drunk people around that weekend...

Everyone needs to experience this at least once in their lives.  Put it on your bucket list. Google "Redneck Fishing Tournament" and read about it.  It's in Bath, Illinois--a town of 350 people, but this tournament is quite the attraction and there are MANY more people in Bath the weekend of the tournament. They're trying to rid the river of Silver Asian Carp because they're taking over. They don't want them to reach the great lakes. In spite of their efforts, the fish get closer and closer each year.

You may have seen videos of these fish on America's Funniest Videos where the fish jump out of the water--a lot of times right in the boat.  It's crazy.  You don't need a pole, just a net (and the website says a baseball bat :) )  They don't know why the fish jump, but it has something to do with the vibration or noise of the boat engine.  The fish jump right behind boats where the engine is.  The best way to catch fish is to stay right on the tail of another boat...and I mean RIGHT next to them--like 6 feet from the boat in front of you--so you can net them as they jump out of the water.  However, it's risky because you get hit by these huge fish as they jump.  They've had broken noses and fingers, etc. at this tournament each year.  We all got hit a few times, Marci had the most hits.  A couple years ago when we went, Trevor's legs got cuts all over from getting hit with fish.  They jump in the boat often, and those fish are MOVING.  Sometimes you drive through a school of fish and there are so many fish jumping, it's all you can do to keep from getting hit.  You just drop your net and cover your head.  Good times. Seriously. You need to try it.

We all dressed in our redneck gear to go along with the redneck theme.  You should see some of the costumes people wear.  It's a circus for sure.

There are two heats each day, two hours each.  We only fished in the two Friday heats and the Saturday morning heat.  Then we had to get going because we had to drive 24 hours straight so Trevor and Jared could make it back for work Monday morning.

Here are some pictures:

I know the picture is blurry, but this reminds me of our trip.  We saw this huge sugar daddy at a gas station early in the trip.  They bet me I couldn't eat the whole thing by the time the trip was over.  It was hard, but I made it.  Mission accomplished.  It was good, too.

I love this girl.  She makes me laugh really hard.  We needed some temporary tattoos to complete our redneck costumes.  This is what Marci picked.

The view from our boat as we waited for one of the Friday heats to start.  Judging from how clean everyone still is, it's probably the very first heat. It looked like this both directions, but the Saturday heat was MUCH more busy with the boats packed more tightly and people EVERYWHERE.

After each heat, they would count everyone's fish and dump them in these bins.  Then use a fork lift to lift them into a truck (a diesel) and haul them off.  We only counted our fish one of the heats, the rest of them we didn't want to wait in line and we knew we wouldn't win since we only had 4 people in our boat.  So we just dumped them in the bin.  We caught 180 fish in one heat. 

This is the biggest fish we "caught".  It jumped right in our boat.  Not only that, but right in the bin we were using to hold our fish.  It had a death wish, I guess.

How filthy we are after a heat.  Those fish are so slimy and scaly.  You have dried scales all over and this is what the slime looks like after it dries.  We spent a lot of time in the shower after the heats.

One of the times Marci got hit with a fish.  She was wearing a baseball face mask even.  The fish knocked her over!  Poor girl.  She took it like a champ, though. (Marci...not the fish.)

The end of our trip.  The whole weekend I was laughing uncontrollably like in this picture.  We stopped at a gas station to get gas and they had a Sinclair dinosaur there.  Naturally we climbed on and took a picture.

I don't know how I composed myself long enough to get a normal picture.  It makes me smile just to remember that weekend.  Now go google the tournament and mark it on next years calendar.  It's that much fun.