Pro-Am Fishing Tournament

Local Tournament Nets Large Fish

A large fishing tournament netted some very large Walleye this weekend. It's my opinion that these fish - running in the 6 to 9 lb. class are predominately pre-spawn females filled with eggs. I wish they would have this tournament in late May, thus conserving more fish in our already heavily overfished lake.

But no, our city fathers (a joke) - actually our city mother and her staff of jesters are purpose driven to allow any festivity or fishing tournament that will promote our city as a tourism "must stop" on the itinerary of every fishing enthusiast and fishing Association's list. This of course would not have anything to do with the fact that they are all private business people who survive by the tourist dollars that come rushing into town every year. Those who have year-round businesses are also aligned with those who do - so that they can all scratch each other's backs. Their business may not need the tourism votes and so they'll cast the tourism vote preemptively, in full knowledge that when their turn arrives to champion whatever cause they are pushing down our throats, the votes will be there to cover them.

And Jesus cast the vendors and money changers out of the temple right? I'd surely wish I had his courage and would walk into their "closed door" edited and televised meetings and turn their tables over while sternly rebuking them for their self serving governing of our small city. It appears to have become a den of thieves. Yu can put a fines suit or dress on a person. You can adorn them with titles and symbols of authority but that doesn't change the person who resides underneath these trappings.

I am not some crazy guy - just another of a majority of disgruntled citizens who are sick and tired of carrying the burden placed on us by local, city government. We pay the taxes that cater to these tourists. We pay for the renovations of parks, streets, historical sites. We pay for the severe increase in gasoline and food prices which are jacked up to the sky every summer to milk the tourists on vacation. The real joke is - every Fall when they depart - the prices stay the same! It's been our pleasure to pay $.25 a gallon less for gasoline by driving 15 miles away to visit friends. We combine that with a month's worth of staple products from the grocery store and we actually earn money by visiting our friends and family within a 15+ mile radius of our city.

Unemployment is rampant and almost every non-professional family must have both husband and wife working, just to make it. But they will spew out figures of how many thousand jobs have been created in our city. B.S. - they are referring to additional help to man the cash registers at the local convenience marts, bus tables at the restaurants, clean dirty motel rooms, in other words - minimum wage jobs in the service industry. Contrast that to 15 years ago, when they began to tax local industry so heavily that large UAW factories (several) that supported whole families, were forced out of our town and to Southern States, Canada, Mexico, UK and Asia or go bankrupt. We were able to have a husband work and take care of his wife and children. Now, the whole darn family must work to "not quite" make ends meet, in the lowest paying, degrading jobs that high schoolers used to work in the summer. Reference the above listed types of jobs.

Well our city does have a lot of beautiful sights and it is a tourist magnet, but it's over the backs of the local citizens, which I find shameful. Just like hosting tournaments for species of fish that are in the midst of spawn. Kind of like shooting deer, elk or endangered animals while they're giving birth. How's that for a mental image? This is exactly the same - the difference being that most people don't see fish as cute and cuddly little creatures. Enjoy your egg-filled lunkers guys, they're "on us"!