Sometimes we plan carefully to be in a specific location to attend a special event. But more often, we just find neat things strictly by serendipity--"the occurrence of events by chance in a happy way." In other words, being at interesting places at interesting times. For example, we were on our last day of camping at Choke Canyon State Park when we noticed the parking lot by the lake's boat launch suddenly had a bright display.
Some people would notice the kiosks and ride on, but not Mark and Denisa. We found someone that looked like they were in charge, and started asking questions. We learned that they are setting up for a big bass fishing tournament that starts early tomorrow morning. We also found out that first prize would take home $20,000!
Today's preparation included setting up the tents and trucks, and pumping lake water into the truck holding tanks. This is a live release tournament. So all the bass that are brought in will be returned back to the lake at the end of tomorrow. (We thought it might be a great idea to go fishing tomorrow evening near the release site, but we were told that just-caught fish with sore mouths wouldn't be interested in biting again for several days.)
Knowing that the big tournament was the next morning and that the stakes were so high, we just had to stop by the area to see the mayhem. We have never before seen so many pickups with empty boat trailers in one place. We just happened to count them--206! They were parked in every nook and cranny of every parking lot near the boat launch site. We found out that they started arriving at 4:30 a.m., so the guys organizing the event were here very early as well.
Teams of two pay $300 per person to enter and fish for the next eight hours. Even though it was nippy when they started, it turned into a beautiful day to be on the lake.
It was interesting to watch the process after we learned how the tournament was scored. Each boat can bring in their best five bass to be weighed. Those can be very valuable fish if they weigh the most so they win that $20,000 first prize. The tournament pays declining amounts for the top 30 sets of fish as well. One thousand dollars is also paid for the single biggest bass of the day. We talked to fishermen that reported that the fishing wasn't great, and we saw several loading up their boats without even going to the weigh-in station. But we were glad that serendipity brought us to this lake on this day to experience something that is so big for these competitors--and we didn't even know this existed.
We found out that 191 of those pickups and trailers were here to deliver competitors for the bass fishing contest. The rest of those boats were taking duck hunters out for the last weekend of duck hunting season.
We hope they made it, as the back of the boat was barely above the surface of the water when they took off.
It was serendipity to be here accidentally when so many duck hunters carefully planned their time to be here at Choke Canyon State Park on this last weekend of duck season. One of our campground neighbors had piles of plastic duck decoys ready to go in the water. This was just half of the decoys at his camp site. When Denisa exclaimed at the number, he said that he only brought three dozen. He has around twenty dozen at home. Just like bass fishing, duck hunting is huge for some people!
Our neighbor needs to get these plastic duck decoys out on the water so Denisa can take some pictures of them. Oh wait, she already made that mistake a couple days ago! Our time at Choke Canyon State Park has come to an end, and we were once again blessed by serendipity that brings us to interesting places at interesting times.
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