JCKF Cape May Kayak Fishing Jamboree 2011 Wrap Up

This year’s event drew close to 50 participants from NY to MD. The fishing was tough following the mid week nor’easter. All but 2 participants found fish to catch and avoided the “Skunk Award’ during the ceremony. Most anglers fished for Tog. Gary Ward managed to score a Tog at 19 ¼ inches! The weather on Saturday morning and all day Sunday was tough to beat. Light breezes and 65 degrees!

Gary Ward (FishenFool81) 19 inch Tautog at JCKF Cape May Jamboree

The event is a catch and release format (CPR), however participants are not penalized for keeping legal fish. Many anglers caught their very first Tog during the event and were able to bring them back for a fish fry. This brought everyone together to swap stories and have some laughs while not on the water.

As always, the camaraderie among this crowd can’t be beat. We all met up with friends that we see too little of and managed to make some new friends as well. It’s always good to put faces with the screen names of those we chat online with all year long. Once again, this event seems to attract practical jokes and this year was no disappointment. I’ve never seen so many spiders and clowns in my life! (I’ll be planning my paybacks accordingly)

Charlie (Lunchbox) present Bob (Mullet Miller) and I with our birthday cake

and of course Charlie presented me with velcro shoes to complete the set!

<br>

The Wolfpack made a strong showing and the new Wolf Den is awesome. Skip pulled me aside and said; “This is a first for the Pack, we’ve never cooked what we caught at an event before”. This is exactly what we were hoping for with the new Jamboree format. A laid back approach to doing what we all enjoy. We also had a strong showing from our friends in KFA-NY. These guys jumped right in and didn’t miss a beat with the laughs and practical jokes.

40 different sponsors joined together to help raise money for Casting for Recovery via raffles. These sponsors are listed on our website. Please visit their websites and show your support for theirs. We had so many donations this year that we ran out of raffle tickets and just let everyone come up for a free for all!

Rat-L-Trap made sure that every participant had the right lure selected for Cape May water conditions!

Lake Laurie Campground was outstanding. Maria, Kristen and the rest of the staff were a pleasure to deal with. The restrooms were very clean and the building we used for the award ceremony was perfect!

Jersey Girl restaurant from Wildwood catered the event again this year. The shrimp and scallop seafood pasta, roast beef and potato salad were all a big hit. (I think that I saw a few guys with food in their eyebrows as they were chomping down so hard)

The fishing conditions were tough and the water looked more like chocolate milk than ocean. The winds picked back up on Saturday afternoon, chasing most of us off of the water. Those that stuck it out and pushed through are listed below.

The winners are as follows;

Slam – 1 Striper, 1 Bluefish, and 1 other than trash fish;

1^st Place - Larry Newman (YaknFool) Larry also took the Slam Calcutta of $110.

Larry Newman (YaknFool) 1st Place Slam

Striped Bass

1^st Place – Joe Piccari (SnapperJoe) Joe also won the Striper Calcutta of $125.

Joe Piccari (Snapper Joe) 1st Place Striper

Joe at the award ceremony

Bluefish

1^st Place – Gary Ward (FishenFool81) Gary also won the Bluefish Calcutta of $105.

Gary Ward (FishenFool81) 1st Place Bluefish

2^nd Place – Gene Kenney (Elkfish)

Gene Kenney (Elkfish) 2nd Place Bluefish

3^rd Place – Chris Coleman (Porter)

Junior Division – Dillon McFarlin (Sanchez McFarlin)

Junior Division's Dillon (Sanchez) with a nice Tautog. Dillon outfished many of the adult participants!

Dillon takes 1st Place in the Junior Division!Thank you to Lunchbox, Mullet Miller, Seaflea, Don Goulart, Casting for Recovery, the sponsors and everyone that helped make this event so much fun!