[Marilyn]

Well, the tournament is over and all in all, it was a good time!!

Thursday evening we had the dinner and door prizes. Many of the guys had gotten there early and quite a few were already sloshed!! There were over 180 guys in the tournament. I say guys because there were maybe 3 women fishing, total!! My customers were surprised that so many people know me. When you are one of so few women, you tend to stand out and I've been in this industry quite a while.

Anyway, about the storm, we were in the bay heading back when the storm hit. It started with a cold blast of wind that did not stop. The waves kicked up very quickly. We were in 3.5 to 4 foot swells in no time running straight into the cold wind, and we had been wade fishing, so we were all soaking wet. Then the cold rain started pouring. We had to run about 30 to 45 minutes, that seemed like forever, under these conditions. The storm hit at around 11:45 a.m. We had been fishing since daybreak and weigh-in wasn't until 2 p.m. so we unloaded the boat in the cold rain and headed back to the condo for hot showers.

The guys I was fishing with all drank lots of Crown and coke last night, and this afternoon, but thankfully they all remained very nice and all helped me with the food and moving things around from the truck to condo and back to the truck. Really nice guys.

And the really nice part.......WE WON THE HARDWARE (ARTIFICIAL BAIT) DIVISION!!!! I caught one keeper trout and one keeper redfish. One of my customers won the largest redfish and got $310 prize and a trophy. We also got a trophy for the largest stringer.

All in all, considering the weather, it was a nice time, and the guys were very appreciative of the invitation to the tournament. I'm very tired though. Got up at 4:50 a.m. and will be going to bed pretty soon!! Not bad for a 55 year old though. The guys all think I'm a real trooper.