On Saturday, September 7, the Reel Blessed Chapter of Fishing’s Future held our 5^th Vamos A Pescar event of 2024 at Indian Riverside Park. This event is one of my favorites, as it is a saltwater event. We had 60 participants registered, as well as 12 volunteers signed up.

I loaded the car on Friday evening, so I am ready to go and less likely to forget anything. I was up bright and early on Saturday morning at Billy Bones, where I picked up the bait for our event. It was nice of Billy Bones to separate 20 dozen shrimp to ensure we had bait for our event.

Tania needed to pick up the food from Fit Fixn’s at 10:00 am, so she stayed at home to ensure an on-time pick-up. I arrived at Indian Riverside Park at around 7:15 a.m. Shortly after I started unloading the car, our volunteers began showing up. Because we were using the pavilions at the park and didn’t have to set up our canopy and tables, it took 30 minutes to set up and prepare for the families to arrive. We also had an FWC Officer and FYCCN representative present at the event. I feel it’s good to have the first interaction with law enforcement under favorable circumstances.

Since Tania wasn’t there to keep me in line, we started our event a few minutes late. If it hadn’t been for our volunteer Sharron, it would have been later., She did an excellent job of stepping up in Tania’s absence. We opened our event with a prayer. I then spoke about the Reel Blessed Chapter of Fishing’s Future and our mission, introducing all our volunteers. I then talked about our sponsors so the families know who was responsible for helping make this event possible at no charge to them,

We had 40 participants show up at the event. Once we finished the introductions and spoke about water safety, I broke the families into five groups and then sent them to stations.  The five stations we had were Casting, Rod and Reel Care post fishing, Bait and Tackle, Rules and Regulations, and Rod/Reel Set up (where the families set up the rods/reels we gave them).

We spent the next hour and a half preparing the families for their fishing expedition. We finished up all the stations around 10:30 a.m. Next, we gathered all the families and gave them the ground rules for fishing the pier. At this point, all the families and the volunteers went fishing.   

All the families seemed to enjoy fishing, and almost everyone caught fish. But about 11:15 a.m., I could tell the heat was starting to get to the families, so I told everyone we would wrap it up at 11:30. This turned out to be a good decision, as right about 11:30 a.m., it started raining. I didn’t mind the rain, as it was enough to cool us off, but not a torrential downpour.

Overall, the fishing was good. We caught about 75 fish, mostly snapper, but we also had some extraordinary catches. One kid caught a baby grouper. One of the younger boys landed a ladyfish with a kid cast rod/reel. By the time the fishing was over, I knew only one kid who had not caught a fish. I was sad to have one not catch anything but he was a good sport. This was his second time fishing with us, and the second time, he didn’t catch anything; he said Well, I am 0 for 2. Hopefully, I will do better next time.

Once we were all off the dock and back at the pavilions, I gathered the families to bless our meal. As with the other events, I asked if anyone would like to bless the meal. Basil, one of the little girls, raised her hand and wanted to pray over the food! It’s great seeing the little ones get involved and be willing to pray before a crowd.

Fit Fixn’s provided us with an excellent and healthy meal. We had a salad, chicken, rice, and black bean vegetable melody. This was the second year we used Fit Fixn’s, and it was another big hit.

After lunch, we did a trash pick-up. We made it a little competition, and the top kid would get a prize. The kids were so excited to go pick up the trash. We picked up a lot of trash, and the winner received a Reel Blessed hat. We were happy to see the kids excited about cleaning up the environment.

We ended our event like we ended all our events. We get the kids to thank the parent/guardian who brought them to the event, tell them they love them, and hug them. This is one of our favorite parts of the events.

All in all, our event went well, and we had many happy families. We want to personally thank all our volunteers and sponsors, without whom we could not serve our community. We are grateful to partner with all of you!