Wayne Sharpe and Mac Morrison from the Foothills Division won the Rocky Fishers Of Men state championships with a catch weighing 15.96 pounds on Lake Wylie on March 8. They collected $1,000.
Joie and Erroll Duckett repeated as the adult/junior champions with 13.86 pounds.
The top director/sponsor team was John Snincak from the Central Division and Richard Jordon from Bass Pro Shops. The big fish, a 5.5 pounder, was caught by Sharpe and Morrison and was good for a $500 gift card from Bass Pro Shops.
Teams leaving the Southpoint landing at 6 a.m. were greeted by 30 mph winds and rain. Weigh-in was held at Bass Pro Shops in Concord.
n n nRobert Thomas Scot Vandergriff, 9, caught a 6 1/2-pound catfish in Hayter’s Gap, Va., at his grandfather’s pond.
His parents are Scot Vandergriff and Kitty Anderson, and his grandfather is Robert Anderson.
They called the catfish “Baby Blue,” the offspring of a 25-pound or so catfish called “Old Blue” that they’ve seen but no one has been able to catch ó yet.
After Robert caught Baby Blue, he returned him to the pond to catch again someday.
n n nMatthew Butler, who will be moving to Fort Bragg this summer, has written a book called “Billy Goes Hunting,” which tells of a young boy whose hunting beliefs and values have been challenged by his peers.
“I wrote this book because I’ve tried desperately to find one like it for my own children and was completely unsuccessful,” he says on his Web site. “It seems that so many people associate hunting with cruelty or unfairness to animals. My children were being harassed at school because I am a hunter and I wanted a way to teach them the values of hunting. I don’t want my children to be ashamed of such a rich and wonderful tradition which has been passed down through my family for generations.”
Butler, a resident of Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has bow hunted previously while living in North Carolina.
The book sells for $9.95 plus shipping at his Web site www.BillyGoesHunting.com.