One of the greatest things about being a member of the Caney Fork Outdoors fishing team, is the chance to travel and compete in various kayak fishing tournaments. While the members of the team are at these events, we always have to keep in mind we are representing a greater entity than ourselves. A while back myself and another member of the Caney Fork Outdoors’ fishing team traveled to North Carolina to compete in the River Bassin Tournament Trail. We were really excited about the opportunity to travel and fish in places that we had never got the opportunity to fish before. We set out early that morning to our first fishing spot and caught a few fish, but then decided to move to better our chances at bigger fish.

It is crazy to think about how much water we must have covered that day in the search of better water. It was an incredibly tough day of fishing and searching to say the least, but we caught what we could and thought we had a good chance ranking high in the tournament. However, those happy thoughts were about to come crashing down when we got back to the check in. After submitting our photos of our catch we thought we had a solid third place, but soon realized that our rank started dropping and eventually fell all the way to the bottom.

This had to be some sort of computer glitch, because it was only showing one fish had been caught. After pointing out what obviously had to be mistake out to the judges, I thought for sure this matter would be cleared up. However, this was no mistake. The reality of the situation was, all of our fish had been disqualified because our kayaks were not in the pictures with the fish we submitted.

Why were the kayaks not in the pictures you may ask? Well, as we all know fish aren’t the most photogenic creatures and rarely want to sit still for a picture. So most of the time we paddle to the bank and get out so we can control the situation a little better. But, apparently there had been a rule change from last year that we had overlooked. Needless to say my teammate and I were furious all of that had work was basically for nothing. But instead of making a huge deal and trying to argue with the judges about the rules.

We decided to be good sportsman and not say anything about the situation and just take this one on the chin. One thing that I was taught as a child was to take loosing in stride and always remember that you will live to fight another day. I also remembered that I am a representative of Caney Fork Outdoors and that I was sure they would have been really disappointed in us if we would have showed anything other than good sportsmanship. The moral of this story is to always read the rules carefully, and be a good sportsman. “Anyone can be a gracious winner; but being gracious after losing shows strength of character “ (Donald Lynn Frost).

For anyone interested in fishing the River Bassin Tournament Trail be sure to read all of the rules. http://www.riverbassintrail.com/1084-2/