Shelter Island Lions Club Snapper Derby a super success
It is said that fire was humanity’s greatest discovery, but judging by the size of the crowd at the Saturday’s 2023 Lion’s Club Snapper Derby weigh in, maybe it’s really the discovery of bait.
The line in te Center to register and weigh-in was down Bateman Street to the basketball courts, as 88 youngsters, 14 and younger, fished spots known and obscure all day Saturday, Sept. 2, after which they carried their catch in sandwich bags, coolers, and lunch boxes to the Shelter Island Library Tent hoping for glory.
A few sturdy fishermen even carried fish in their arms to the weigh-in table when no bag or cooler could be trusted with their scaly treasures.
As always, School Nurse Mary Karnarvogel was on hand to weigh the fish, assisted by Judy Card who recorded the weights and names. Ms. Karnarvogel had an encouraging word for every fisherman, no matter how puny the catch, and wiped the scale carefully after each entry to ensure the accuracy of the results.
When the weighing was complete, Elizabeth Galle announced that Tom Kenny had caught the biggest bluefish, a hefty 10.08 pounds, with Jackson Clark, last year’s winner just behind him with an 8.94-pound blue.
CJ and Harper Rolfer tied for first place in the “catch and release” category with 20 snappers each, and Isabel Thilberg won biggest snapper for the second year in a row, with a dandy fish that was just shy of the limit at .93 pounds.
Ted Kenny said, when he and his wife found themselves living on Shelter Island at the start of the pandemic with few ways to get their 5- and 8-year-old boys out of the house safely, they found Henry Cruise, a 15-year-old who loved to fish and was willing to show the boys how to do it.
Henry, himself a three-time winner of the Lions Club Snapper Derby, spent summers with his family on Shelter Island all his life, but when he went back to the city, he missed fishing so much he began casting his line in Central Park.
“I wanted to go fishing, I was stuck in the city, so that’s what I did.” Henry said about catch-and-release angling in Manhattan.
Henry spent the first weeks of the pandemic fishing with the Kenny boys, producing two life-long fishermen (Eamon and Tom Kenny), one newly-minted fishing guide (Henry Cruise), and the winner of the bluefish competition (Tom) at the Snapper Derby.
Both brothers entered a large bluefish in the competition, caught near Bug Light on their first time going for blues.
Henry is a volunteer for C.A.S.T. for Kids, a nonprofit that takes groups of developmentally-challenged kids on fishing day trips, often to Henry’s favorite Central Park fishing spots.
Eleven imaginative images were created by youngsters hoping to have their design made into next year’s T-shirt-given to all competitors.
Three designs were chosen for further consideration. After the weigh-in, Lion’s volunteers Myles Clark and Susan Binder were on hand to scale, clean and fry up the snappers, while the boys with bluefish were mobbed with offers to help fillet and smoke their fish.
