Ok, the trash talk is over. This event proved once and for all which state has the best fishers...Hands down the Washington fishers just flat kicked butt...

With each state entering an equal number of fish (7) for a total catch of 14, Washington's total weight was over 93 pounds compared to a meager 83 pounds for them or o gun folks.

The winning fish went to Washington's own Dr. Strangelove with a 16 pounder.

Dr Strangelove went for the TH rod which was donated by TH rods as his reward for capturing this years title of springer king.

Team honors went to Washingtons Bait boy who had 2 or o gun fishers, Capt. Dan and Mr. Fisherman. This team entered 3 fish.

The weigh in was covered by ESPN and other not so famous photograhers...(pictures to follow) with on lookers estimated to be between 5 to 7000 (well maybe only 125 or so...told you I didn't need that beer Roy.)

Special thanks go to the following supporters of this event (remember, they gave freely of their product so think of them the next time you make a purchase):

TH Rods,
Fisherman' Marine Supply
Motion Marine
Get Bent Tackle
Brad's Anchors
Russ Chevrolet and Troy
Lamiglas
Jack Mattice (Thumper)
Dot and Bev
Jan and Mark (FishinMission)
Marie's Bait and Tackel
Steve Ng

I would also like to thank David Jackson for his computer work and to Jack Mattice my co-chair of the event and our weather forecaster who called the weather right. We had little or no rain or wind chop until an hour or so after the bbq.

Thanks also goes to the fine cooks and those who brought goodies to share with the group. The food was great.

Now we have to turn our attention to the next floatilla and the next volunteers.

I thank all of you for your support and help and I enjoyed meeting you at the bbq.

In closing I would only like to say "Preacher's Boy ate crow big time."

Giz

It was a heckuva day.....and quite a little feast at the get-together. Thanks everyone who cooked some VERY tasty dishes to share with all of us.

Thanks to Giz and Thumper and all the others who organized, provided prizes, and made it a really fun day.

You do the math.......54 boats with 2-4 folks per boat, and 14 fish weighed in. Fishin' was SLOW. But not as slow for the folks up north as the folks down south.

Congrats Team Washington!

Boy am I tired...thats a tough drive with no sleep! But we all had a great time chatting on the VHF and getting to see some of you in person. Like Dan S. said, fishing was SLOW, even though I do have to listen tomy bro-inlaw Jason, brag about the Native he did catch and release.
I had the pleasure of fishing with Matt, known to all of you as "BobberDown". He gave it all, tried it all and even tried a few "RT" tricks to no avail. Matt is a class fisherman, its great to be able to fish with someone that knows his stuff. Our fishing stories never ended, funny how many of our fisherperson lifes parallel each others.
RT, Jeffhead, FJ, Stew, BigDog AuntyM and Gutz...it was great to put a face to some of the monikers.
And thanks again to Giz and all his helpers.....great job, lets do it again soon.

Steve Ng aka FishNg1

Great job Giz!!! Had another fun day of fishing with Dan S. and Osprey, even if our boat (as well as many others) had that distinct smell of skunk all over it. BOE, thanks for the great breakfast (I know who's hogline to get into now)!!! Have to echo FishNg1's thoughts, great to put some faces to names of some more good folks from the boards and to visit with some old new friends. AuntyM, Fishunter, Fishunter2, Fish Jesus, Spooled, Catch & Eat, FishNg1, and all who I met today nice to have met you, just a nice group of folks. Looking forward to seeing you all again and hope to get to fish with all of you. Now may I dare say...........F5 in Sekiu sometime in August or September!?!?!?! There would pretty much be a gaurantee that everybody will catch more than thier share of fish.
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

Thanks giz for everything you did to set this all up. Even though we didn't get a hit or anything else we still had fun today. We did meet some really great people out there on the river. Congrats to those WA fishers. We missed the bbq and some good eats I hear, oh shoot.
Did anyone by chance happen too see our lost boat trailer strap that we somehow forgot about in our hurry to get thing in the boat in the line to the ramp at Bay Port Marina? If you picked it up and have it please email us.

*See ya on the river*

GIZ, THANKS FOR A WELL ORGANIZED EVENT. ALTHOUGH THE FISHING WAS SLOW, NOT EVEN A HIT FOR TEAM "THREE POLISH COWBOYS", THE WEATHER WAS GOOD, THE RAIN STAYED UP NORTH AND THE BARBECUE WAS EXCELLENT. MET A LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE, COMPLETEING THE DAY. AGAIN THANKS FOR A GOOD DAY.
WALLY

HOLY COW that was some good eats. thank you all for the wonderful event I got to put some names to some faces. Id like to thank my team for feeding me well on the water(Mr F) and the hydration factor was high. Auntie M my wife thanks you for the shrimp .

I thank the winds and the rain for stalling off the coast enven though the onset made for a rough ride home....

I heard once that even a blind flotilla team can catch a fish (right RT )

Thanks for the great time.


Rick

AM,

Those shrimp were FANTASTIC! MMMMMMmmmm.....good. It was a pleasure to finally meet you in person.

Jeffhead,

Thanks for dragging Os and I along with you. It's always a pleasure to fish in your boat. Now if I could just get "the smudge" out of my brain......

Terrific Floatilla.......can't wait for F5.

Thanks Giz and crew - great event (best and biggest one yet)!

But what's this talk of a Wassie victory?!? Let's see - both states come in with 7 fish, despite more Washington entrants. I mean, a 12 pound Columbia springer is just as hard to come by as a 16 pounder. Get a few above 25 lbs. and that might be a different story. I say "This Ain't Over Yet"! (See separate post about suggestions for the next flotillas talked about).

As for the stink of skunk in your boat Team Capital Punishment, I figure it paled in comparison to the stink on your truck! ... I was so confident that it would be an Oreo waltz that I told them I'd butt kiss em if we lost. I just didn't think that would turn out as it did. You guys know what I mean. ... But hey, the fishing was slow. The fact our Team Quick Fish came up with 3 on and 2 landed despite half a dozen bananas in our boat says a lot. It says it doesn't hurt to have a local St. Helens fisher on your team. Thanks Aaron (Jellyhead; a fun guy to fish with).

Thanks for the great Hood canal shrimp on the barbie, and ah ... blow up toy, AuntyM. That's not a good thing for a guy with a few beers in him to be carrying around (as you later saw why , please excuse that move ).

All in all, great people and great fun - and great fish on the BBQs! See ya next time.

RT

Well Rt, Mr. fisherman and the rest of you truely whinning Or o gon guys.. Rules where heaviest fish...You whine, and just can't simply admit you where defeated. A bunch of lawyers have poped out of no where...Rick's fish does not count because he punched it on a Or out of state license...not resident license...The key is non resident license...so the state recongizes him as other than an oreo...Grow up, get over it and complement the winners.. :p

I am glad you all had a good time but, I think we should also thank the owners of both boards for allowing us to clutter up there servers with our bs.

Thanks, BoB and Jennie.

Giz..

Well well now Giz - we find out that a counting Oreo fish weighing around 20 lbs. was purposely stalled away from the 3:30 weigh-in by a Wassie at the tiller in that participating boat! It would have made it 8 fish totaling 103 lbs. for Oregon to 7 fish at 93 lbs. for Washedupington. Read the 10th post in the "THIS AIN'T OVER YET!" thread to find out the real truth of F4. You Wassies amounted to a 93 pound weakling.

It's amazing how all those 20 pounders get weighed in at about 13 pounds when the scales come out. Think about it --- 100+ fisherfolk, 14 fish, and the biggest was not even close to 20. Could it be that we fishing types tend to overestimate weight???

My fish weighed "0"lbs. However, the crow was about 20lbs. It was nice to meet a bunch of you from this board.

Sorry I did not get to meet you Aunty M. Pops and Spooled had a fire or something to put out so we had to leave early. Turned out that the rain hit just as we got to the ramp.

Thanks to Walt and Jack for a great day. Glad the weather held out as long as it did. Next time, make sure the fish cooperate. I cannot take another bite of crow. The feathers are very hard to pass.

BTW, how much did RT pay that little boy for his fish?

I really thought that we were going to have a stellar fishing day ahead of us when we nailed that first fish within 2 minutes of bait down at 6:15. We'd have been fishing sooner if the flood light hadn't have died and we had NO clue where we were going. Of course, we had the boat in the water by 4am and sat there for about an hour and a half so we were ready to fish. Just didn't know where to go. We did have fun watching the jockeying going on at the ramp, though. Amazing.

Oh, and if you wanna see the fish check out Get Bent\'s website and you'll see it up in the masthead image. Had to do some touch-up work on her, as she was throwing scales all over the boat when she came in. Nice to have fresh fish, that's for sure.

Poor Stew tried to lay some face-to-face smack down on me and it came back at him:

Stew: Damn, you're uglier in person than I thought you'd be.

Dave: Yeah, and you're twice as fat as I thought you'd be.

Of course he could have come back with the "Yeah, but I can go on a diet and you'd still be ugly" but that had to be saved for about 20 minutes later when hindsight kicked in.

Nice to meet the few of you that I did before I had to scram. Glad that my run-in with my stalker G-Man was a safe one. Should have also known better when I pulled RT's team number (#13) as my raffle ticket number. THAT sucked.

I know that this is a little late, but I wanted to add my appreciation for the organizers and fishermen/women that made this such a fun and filling event. I would have been here with my thanks sooner but I lost my hard drive last Friday. Don't forget to back up your data boys and girls!

Dogfish, a special thanks for having me on your boat. You're a class act. Thanks to Fisherdan and FisherZack as well. Don't forget those copolymers for our next trip guys!

Ron