Tidelines – July 11, 2013
Fishing took a back seat this week to house projects, but I have a good excuse. My wife and I just closed on our new house (old house, but new to us), and my dad came to town to help us start to tackle the long “to do” list. Prior to retirement, he was a General Contractor, hardware store owner, and Building Inspector (among other titles), so I needed to capitalize as best as possible on his expertise.
The long weekend also served as good family time, with three generations of Hurleys spending time together, and I was still in that family spirit when I came to work on Monday morning and saw the results of the Surf City Pier 5th annual Children’s Fishing Competition & Celebration.
Vinita and crew at Surf City Pier hosted 500 children (ages 0-16) on July 4th, and everyone involved has been calling it another smashing success.
Like with most successful events, they enjoyed (and depended on) support from the local community. Surf City Crab supplied the bait, Sysco Foods provided lunch, Cheerwine donated soda, the Fagan/Lovelace/Parker families contributed juice and water, and most volunteers were given a free t-shirt compliments of Your Custom Wearables.
The fishing competition was only part of the event, as they day was mostly kids just being kids and having fun. In addition to fishing, they enjoyed bean bag toss, bobbing for apples, duck pond, water play, and face painting.
Surf City Pier had plenty of prizes, though, for the kids that weighed in fish. In fact, every child that weighed in a fish walked away with a prize. And while every kid that weighed in a fish got a prize, the pier also gave special recognition to the top three finishers in all four age groups.
For ages 5-7, the top three finishers were Parker Warnock in 1st with a 15.8 oz. flounder, Garret Sholar in 2nd with a Virginia mullet, and Jacob Bass in 3rd with a spot.
For ages 8-10, Tyler Weissinger was 1st with a 1 lb. 5 oz. spadefish. Then came Brady Alfandre in 2nd with a spot and Olivia Thompson in 3rd with a Virginia mullet.
Kodiak Brady won the 11-13 age group with a 6.6 oz. Virginia mullet, and he was followed by Daniel D. in 2nd with a spot and Noah Ferrell, also with a spot, in 3rd place.
The oldest kids division, ages 14-16, was won by Tyler Woods with a 4.8 oz. flounder. In 2nd was Josie Ferrell with a pigfish, and Noah Inman came in 3rd with a Virginia mullet.
Prizes were also awarded to every child that wrote a fish story. The prompt for ages 5-10 was “If I could have a sea creature for a pet it would be…and why.” The older kids had a slightly different prompt, “Pick an endangered sea creature and tell a little about it and what we can do to protect it.”
There were fourteen kids that wrote fish stories, and each one of them received a rod and reel combo and a trophy. The list of young authors includes Breanna Garner, Dalton Moody, Alyea Reynolds, Zachary Creech, Makayla Jackson, Anna Weaver, M.J. Brooks, Anthony Stevenson, Tyler Moody, Nick Thompson, Donovan Guignard, David Norris, Eric Weaver, and Owen Taffer.
The Fisherman’s Post favorite was the following by Zachary Creech (age 8):
“If I could have a sea creature as a pet it would be a shark because it could be a good surf board. My shark could eat the people that bully me. My shark could be a guard when I go to sleep at night. Me and my shark can swim in the pool and my shark can keep me from drowning in the pool. Me and my shark can go to the park and play in the sand and we will play tag and we will swing and he will be my best friend. THE END.”
For all five years Vinita has been the single person in charge of Surf City Pier’s children’s day, and she is the first to say she depends heavily on volunteers and sponsors. This year she is also saying that the event has outgrown her and she is now looking to form a committee to help keep the kids’ event a success on so many levels.
If you would like to be a part of the committee for the Surf City Pier 6th annual Children’s Fishing Competition & Celebration, you should reach out to Vinita by either stopping by the pier or by emailing her at pier_witch@yahoo.com.
I encourage you to be a kid’s best friend—be a shark.
