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The 24th Annual Lew Mead Memorial Kids fishing tournament on Cassadaga Lake was a huge success.
Event Chairman Ron Gross reported that there were over 90 youths signed up for this year's event. Mr. Mead must have pulled some strings with the man upstairs to get a window of nice weather for this year's event, but there were a lot of happy fisher-persons reporting to the weigh station with their catch.
All the fish were brought in, measured and quickly released. Trophies were awarded according to age groups for both boys and girls. In the 7-year-old and under bracket, the winners were Aubrey Hedges and Zachary Distoff. In the 8-10 bracket, the winners were Aria Paff and Logan Hayward, who caught the biggest fish of the event measuring 16-1/4 inches long. In the 11-13 bracket, Haley Stang and Dan Stang and in the final bracket Kyla Denomy and Trevor Skelly. This year's event was made possible by the Cassadaga Lakes Association, Casssadaga Shurfine, Cassadaga Community Bank, Jo-Jo Asian Cafe, Fredrickson's Lumber, Cassadaga County Club, American Legion Post 1280, the Chautauqua County Federation of Sportsmen, Burger King Fredonia, the Northern Chautauqua Conservation Club, M&T Bank Fredonia, DM8 Theaters Route 60, McDonalds Fredonia, Cassadaga Fire Department and Gilberts Cabin's Cassadaga. This year's helpers included: Rich Koenig, Steve Wickmark (who will take over for Ron Gross next year), Sean Seibert, Peter George, Tom Everett, Rich Conelly, Jim McConnen, Jeannie MacKrell, Teri Seidert and Anita Gian.
After the Lew Mead event, it was off toward Hamburg for the Southtowns Walleye Association awards party.
The 30th year event was another great year with 200 walleye entries at least eight-pounds-plus. This year there were two entries in the 12-pound range, which were caught in Barcelona and two in the 11-pound range that were caught out of the Cattaraugus Creek area. Patrick Obrien caught the grand-prize-winning walleye, weighing 12.44 pounds, fishing on Thursday, out of Barcelona at noon in 53 feet of water using a dipsey diver loaded with 30-pound test monofiliment line, on the No. 2 setting, 90 feet back. The lure was a home-made harness, that was pink, red and white. He was fishing with Captain Jim "Doc" Stoll and Nick Miller. When the fish hit it bent the dipsey rod back to the downrigger.
I did not get the other stories because my grand-daughter, Rachel Glowniak, was having her 8th grade graduation party. She won top honors of her graduation class at Northern Chautauqua Catholic School -- great job!
Calendar:
The Department of Environmental Conservation will be holding their annual Angler Outreach for Lake Erie and the Upper Niagara River on June 27 at Woodlawn Beach State Park Lodge from 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. This free seminar will include presentations and discussion on steelhead, walleye and sturgeon.
Rob Ray's third annual Big Dawg Walleye tournament is scheduled for July 8 run from the Chadwick Bay Marina. Optional Big Fish Friday is July 7. For details call Mark Mohr at 998-9871 or visit www.razorsbigdawg.com.
The seventh annual Sunset Bay Walleye Shootout is July 22 with an optional Big Fish Friday on July 21. For details call Don Ruppert at 498-7770 or Bob Rustowitz at 830-6394.
The Northern Chautauqua three-day walleye tournament will be held August 4-6. For details contact Zen Olow at 640-2776.
The Bear Lake Rod 7 Gun Club will host a 3-D archery shoot on Sunday June 25 from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. On July 2 the club will host a 3-D "money shoot" starting at 9 a.m. with a shotgun start. Contact Rudy Abersold at 397-9717 for details.
The Innovative Outdoors Walleye Challenge from Chadwick Bay marina is August 26, with optional big fish Friday. For details contact Jim Steel at 983-7867 or visit https://lakeeriewalleyetournament.com.
Boating safety courses offered by the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, Flotilla 34, will be held on June 24 at the Ashville Flasher, 5338 Stow Road, Ashville, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. For information, or to register, call Judy at 785-2198. If your club or organization is holding a hunter safety training/trapping course or a turkey shoot or any other outdoors event, and would like to see it posted in the calendar, send information to the OBSERVER, 10 East Second Street, Dunkirk, N.Y. 14048, or call the Sports Dept. at 366-3000 ext. 5 after 6 p.m.
Note: If you have a big-game fishing or trapping success story you would like to share, call 366-1772, or 467-2079 and leave a name, phone number and a time you can be reached. You can also call 366-3000, ext. 5, after 6 p.m.
Gene Pauszek is an OBSERVER outdoors columnist. Send comments to sports@observertoday.com.