I
thank our president from the bot TOM of
my heart and also from the en DYER membership
for leading us to this celebration tonight.
A
couple of weeks ago, when one of the taller members of the club came by and DAVE me the opportunity to talk
tonight, I wasn’t sure POWELL
I’d do. It has been years since I’ve spoken before the Stuart Sailfish Club. He said, “ We’d really like KUBIAK.” ANDY
told me that for the 75th they were going to really put on the FRITZ. I thought to myself: That sounds a lot better than sitting around
and throwing a couple of hot dogs on the GRELL.
I thought maybe it would be appropriate
to talk about the past presidents. Over
the years, all of those volunteers DAVE
MILLS of their time and effort to keep this club alive. But it seems that recently my memory GENE must have a DETMER in it. – (and I’m not
even 75 yet!!) I mean lately it has really taken a WHIPPEN. Half the
time, I can’t remember what the BILL
I did yesterday!!
However
the name of one past president does come to mind: He was always the Weather
Chairman for the Club’s Small Boat Tournaments. The committee felt it was necessary to do a SEA CHECK of ocean conditions
each morning. You know, when our St
Lucie Inlet gets an East wind on an outgoing tide, it can get BARRY RUFO.
But
really what I’d like to do tonight is just share a little TOMFOOLERY with you.
Once upon a time, in a land not so far far away…. There
lived a family of commercial fisherman along the East coast of Florida in a
little town named Stuart. They were struggling a little bit because fish prices
were dropping. Now, these were wise men,
because soon it WHITICAR to
them that they no longer had to GANNETT
fish for a living. All they had to do
was greet the Northerners visiting the local Pelican Hotel & Sunrise Inn
with a friendly HOWDY in the
morning, SKIPPER them out to
the GULFSTREAM, catch a bunch
of sailfish, take a NORWESTER
course back to the inlet, CAPT. ADD
up their profits and they wouldn’t have to live like a HOBO anymore.
By and by, the Stuart Sailfish Club was formed. It advocated releasing sailfish for future
generations to catch. The waters off the St Lucie Inlet continued to team with
sailfish. And the town was to become known as the Sailfish Capitol of the
World.
As time went on, the membership started the great
tradition of the Light Tackle Tournament, which has seen many changes over the
years…
·
from
linen to mono
·
from
star drags to lever
·
from
dead boat to backing down
·
from
no riggers, to sophisticated RUPP
riggers
·
from
no tops, to Bimini tops, to BAUSCH
hardtops and towers
A
dredge was a secret weapon for a tournament. Now we use them every day. The list goes on
and on.
Imagine
the plight of the proud owner of an older sportfish; As they were heading out at 20 knots for the
8:30am lines in: Before he knew it, the ole girl HATTERAS overtaken by the entire fleet!! It WHITICARd
to him that something was wrong. He
yelled up to the bridge: ”What the L&H
makes this ole RYBOVITCH so
slow?” The captain put her on autopilot,
came down and consoled the owner. “This ole girl has MERRITT, but she is no longer the VIKING of the sea. In
order to pay TRIBUTE to the
sport, and be competitive today, you’ll just have to SPENCER. If you WILLIS permission to not BAYLISS than 2 or 3 million
dollars to build a brand new all AMERICAN
CUSTOM GARLINGTON of a
sportfish… one that not every JIM
SMITH owns, we can be competitive again in about 2 years.”
Well…
the owner thought and pondered, and pondered and thought. He finally answered, “Frankly, the thought of going 40+ knots in a
65 footer SCARBOROUGHs the
hell out of me!!”
And,
so it was that tournaments like Stuart Sailfish Club Light Tackle helped to
raise the bar for anglers, captains, mates and boats.
And,
now as we celebrate our 75th anniversary, instead of focusing on the
past, I would like to look into my Crystal Ball and tell you the LONG STORY of the future MY WAY:
Ahh…
Yes… I foresee a tremendous amount of HOPE
for the Stuart Sailfish Club. As soon as
they learned that the U.S. Government would no longer OUTLAW any FLORIDIAN
to make a trip to Cuba, the club organized a tournament there during
the PRIME TIME of this coming
June. Now, this tournament was not to be
your average DAY MAKER. It would be 5 full days of fishing.
The
volunteers have been working without RESTITUTION
and have made the rules CLEAN-N-SIMPLE.
If you are any kind of SEA HUNTER, you would have
already called and said: “I’M ON”
Everyone
wanted to participate. Why someone even
called in and asked: ” Can we enter R
KA NU?” The Office Manager couldn’t
help herself. She kinda let out a Tish,
Tish, but answered, “That would be very CAVALIER of you, but are you a TEASER?, or just PLANE
CRAZY? You need to take a LISCENSE TO CHILL.”
By
and by, June 11th finally arrived and the fleet left Key West and
took the WALKER’S RUN across the TRUE BLUE Florida Straits that
can sometimes be a real BONE SHAKER. No SEA
CHECK was necessary, the trip turned out to be an EASY RIDER.
As
they made their FINAL APPROACH,
the PATINA’d buildings of
Havana appeared like a DESERT ROSE.
Soon, they would set up BASE CAMP at Marina Hemmingway
and await the big day,
At
sun up the next morning, it was SHOW TIME!
The fleet would kick off the Cuban CHALLENGE.
The
tournament progressed very well. One angler turned out to be a HAL-RAISER. One night, with a
lot of BAYLEYHOO going on, he
was having too much HEDGE FUN and really made an OSCEOLA out of himself. But, you know… what happens in Cuba, stays in
Cuba.
Speaking
of which: I would be SEA LION II
ya if I didn’t say that I noticed LISA
K and LAURA K posing
as local SIGHT-SEA-ERs aboard
a big sportfish across the marina. They would apparently ANHINGA the local COCONUT
EXPRESS every day to visit. The boat never left the dock. Every day was a lay day!!. I think the 3 AMIGOS aboard would get their TRIPLE TAILs in the DOG HOUSE when they got home!!
By
and by as the fleet trolled and fished and fished and trolled, the competition
finally came to the end.
The
weather was UNBELIEVABLE, and
the fishing was OFF THE CHAIN.
So the fleet gathered their gear, headed
out to the Gulfstream for the ride home thru the St Lucie Inlet and back to
Stuart, Florida where they would all live happily ever after.
Tom Hawken
2016
