Our annual Miles Meyer Fly Fishing Tournament took place on February 11^th at Montauk State Park. With the tournament this year on a Saturday, we had our largest field of contestants ever – 18 FATC members. The weather was great – 45 degrees and sunny – and the contestants were ready to go – but would the trout cooperate?

Most contestants met at 8:45am at the pavilion just after you enter the park. SUV’s and one fancy sports car filled the parking lot ready for competition. The contestants were allowed to “practice” fishing from 9am – 11:30am and get their “tactics” for the afternoon down. Good reports from the guys in the morning but they really didn’t know where they would fish for the tournament. For the tournament each contestant picked his beat or fishing zone area from a hat. The park was broken into six beats/zones, so no one had an unfair advantage during the practice period. There would be no more than 3 contestants per zone, and they had plenty of room.

Sid Aslin, Bill Lowry, and Kenny Klimes would be the “judges” for the event visiting each contestant sometime throughout the tournament. We won’t mention names but two FATC members were caught outside their zones. Since they had not fished yet they were not deducted any points and they scurried back to their correct zones to fish.

The afternoon seemed to be a littler tougher fishing for some, but others changed flies, changed tactics, and did better. The tournament officially went from 1pm start to a 4pm siren end. As the guys all returned to the pavilion to await the winner, no one revealed their numbers until all were present. Then Kenny announced to all to raise their hands and keep them up until the number of trout they caught were less than announced.

Kenny started with a number of three trout in the net – many held up their hands. But as the number grew higher the hands started to go down one by one, except for two – Jim Craig and new member Raul Vargas. Seven trout, eight trout – hands were still up for Raul and Jim. You could cut the tension with a knife (just kidding). Finally, Raul’s hand went down when we hit ten trout. Eleven trout, twelve trout and we stopped there. Jim Craig took the tournament (that he predicted he would win) with twelve trout in the net. Congratulations Jim for a tournament well played. Jim went to a Montauk favorite the “cerise” worm which put him over the top.

Jim will receive the coveted Miles Meyer Tournament plaque with his name on it for one year until next year’s tournament. We had the honor of having Craig Dull (who also participated) and FATC Chairman Kenny Klimes present the plaque to Jim Craig. Craig Dull is Miles Meyer’s son-in-law.

The day ended at Jim’s favorite Salem restaurant “Pizza Inn” for a quick celebratory dinner before all headed home. When you see Jim next give him a pat on the back for being this year’s Miles Meyer Tournament winner!