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News
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Barta Tournament Memories |
| June 1, 2008 |
(The following is a letter the tournament received from 2007 participant Todd Saieed of the Miss Marilyn)
Dear Tred:
I am writing to thank you for continuing to hold your annual Barta Fishing Tourney in Beaufort every year. For the past three years, our families, along with our best friends have made this one of the highlight events of our year. We are the group down at the D dock on the Beaufort waterfront. We have learned how to make this event something our family and friends will never forget. Not only is the cause for the Boys & Girls Club a super cause, but the idea of focusing our children on the aspect of how to make fishing with family a fun event makes the Tourney a great event.
The year was even more special for my family and our boat “Miss Marilyn”. My three boys and I have been fishing our boat as a team, with our good friend and mate, Chris Elliot for three years. Chris is a professional fisherman who has shared his talents and superior character with our family by teaching my boys not only the skills of rigging baits and fishing, but also the attitude and morals of being a good patron of the sea and it’s life.
Our boat is named in honor of my mother, Marilyn, who left our lives a few years ago. The tournament this year started on Friday with a slightly rough day at sea. After a long and frustrating full day of fishing, our team was totally skunked! We spent all afternoon the day before rigging plenty of baits and didn’t even have the opportunity or need to change them out the first day. We got up the next morning and seriously debated whether we should make the trip out to sea, based on the extreme rough forecast of large seas and high winds. After being encouraged by Mom, we realized we had no choice but to crank the engines and head out for a shot at catching some kind of fish.
I will never forget crashing through the waves as we listened to your morning prayer, which we repeated several times during the day and the next day and the next day. The prayer basically thanked God for the tough weather days so we could appreciate the calm days. I thanked God for the bad fishing days so we could appreciate the good fishing days. These young men will remember those words for the rest of their lives.
After an hour of fishing, catching a King Mackerel and a Wahoo, we finally hooked up on our first Sailfish. The moment turned our whole boat into a fury of excitement. A 15 year-old friend of my oldest son angled it. Within the next half hour, we hooked up on another, which was angled by my oldest son, Tommy. The excitement was overwhelming as we continued to battle the huge seas in our Luhres 36. Within the next hour we hooked up on our third Sailfish of the day, which was angled by my youngest son, Christian who is ten years old. Our team was overwhelmed. We knew we were then tied for the lead with three releases until we heard the “Outlaw” hook up and release its second fish of the day giving them the lead with four releases during the two days. We were one sail short, leaving my third son being the only kid left on our boat without a release. With thirty minutes left in the Tourney, Connor, my middle son, hooked up and released our fourth Sailfish of the day, giving all three of my sons and one of their friends a memory we will never forget! On top of it all, we were beside our best buddies, Captain Pizza and Crew of the Waste Knot! Our team of a Father, three sons, friend and super mate got that day you prayed for in the early morning.
We arrived back to the docks to be greeted by all our family and best friends. We carried through with the standard tradition of throwing all the boys in the water off the docks for catching their first billfish. This is what fishing is all about! Truly a fishing day from heaven. We also like to think Miss Marilyn had something to do with it!
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