Daniel, always with a smile on his face, at his 8th grade graduation with friend Mariah Ross.

As many of you know, my sweet and wonderful son, Daniel, my "Bubba," died in an accident July 19.  The support that all of you in our fishing family have given us has been overwhelming and much appreciated.  Your thoughts and prayers have helped us get through this very miserable time and we cannot thank you enough.

My Daniel is the happiest person I have ever known.  He has a kind spirit and a generous heart.  He loved everyone he came across in life and makes each and every person he knows smile with his contagious laugh and personality.  Daniel has always been my inspiration..... to be kind and generous to everyone, no matter what they do, to enjoy life to its fullest, to appreciate the beauty in nature, to hug and kiss every baby, dog and cat because they are cute, to think of others and make it your duty to bring them happiness and brighten their day, to find the positive in each person, to laugh, laugh, laugh and just have fun, to do everything the very best you can and learn how to do it even better, to enjoy your friends and revel in their weirdness, to tell everyone you know how much you love them, to make people understand they don't have to sweat the small stuff, to be proud of who you are.  I am a better person because of these gifts my son gave me.  I miss him terribly as many of you do.  And to remember Daniel's kind and loving spirit, I will live my life as honorably as he did.  I am very proud of my son and his contributions to all our lives.  I hope he will continue to be an inspiration to you as he is to me.  I will forever love you Bubba.

Thanks again for all your support and prayers, Diane, Chris and family.

Chris and I have been running tournaments for over seven years now.  We have always had a very basic and simple set of rules for our tournaments, relying on good sportsmanship and good fishing etiquette to control behavior of our anglers.  And to date, we have never had to disqualify any participants of our events. 

Up until last season the only complaint we ever had was that we failed to provide "diet" soda for our diabetics at our weigh-in cookouts.  Since then, we have always had both diet soda and water available.  The tournaments and the trails are designed based on Chris's extensive tournament experience and are meant to be competitive but fun.  The kind of trail you can't wait to fish every year. 

It has been a pleasure working with 98% of you.  However, recently we have experienced a great deal of ridiculous complaints and unnecessary whining (my words, not Chris's).  The result:  more rules.  And many of you are asking why.  So, I will tell.

You are forbidden to talk to me during weigh-in.  Why?  Because some idiot made a complaint that I was being bribed to enter a different weight so they could win.  And another person yelled at me, and then to Chris, that I recorded the wrong weight because I was too busy chatting with another angler.  Enough of that.

Both partners need to go to the tub with their fish.  Why?  One practical reason is that it speeds up the process when you can help hold bags open, thus, getting the fish back into water faster.  But the real reason is that another idiot complained that Chris made up the weight and their weight was much more.  You must both go to the scale and verify the weight.  Yet, a team of idiots could not agree among themselves what their own weight was, and the weight I recorded was different than either of theirs.  And Chris has been accused of holding his hand on the basket to increase the weight of some teams.  Both of you must go up to the tub, verify that all your fish have been put in the weigh bag, and verify what the scale says your catch weighs.  If you have any doubts, then would be the time to question why your fish didn't all weigh five pounds each.

An angler who argues with Chris during the wegh-in will get disqualified.  Why?  If I have to tell you why, then you are related to the idiots described above.  But, just in case there are any doubts... Chris is the Tournament Director.  His decisions are final.  Chris is the most fair and honest person I know.  He does not take off 26 days a year from work, give up overtime opportunities, and not fish in other tournaments himself, to put on tournaments for all of you and get "mouth" worst than all four of our teenage children combined.  This sport MUST be a respectable gentleman's sport or it won't survive.  This was my rule.  I won't tolerate disrespect from anyone.  If you feel it necessary to yell and make a fool of yourself in public at one of our tournaments, go away.  The other 98% of people fishing don't want to deal with you.  Neither do I.

There are a couple of other rules that have always existed AT EVERY TOURNAMENT EVERYWHERE but for the sake of my sanity, I want to review them.

Don't come to the scales with food in your mouth or a cigarette hanging out of your mouth.  When was the last time you saw Kevin VanDam doing that?

For morning take off you must line up in numerical order.  This is for efficiency (you all want as much time to fish as possible) and, more importantly, for safety.  We are getting a lot of comments lately about teams having to wait for boat #3 who is staging all the way in the back of 87 other boats.  Boat #3 should be lining up behind boat #2 in the front of the pack.

You cannot get out of your boat during the tournament without notifying the Tournament Director.  A quick potty trip to the woods is acceptable, picking your boat up out of the water and carrying it over a road, dead trees, or whatever, is not acceptable.

Do not fish where there are signs prohibiting you from entering or fishing.  And do not deface any public property (by digging, for example) so that you can gain access to otherwise inaccessible waters.

Again, it has been a pleasure working with 98% of you.  I totally enjoy seeing you all and talking about your families and poking fun when I can.  Thank you all for your support of the trails and for representing us in a positive and professional manner.  Chris, the kids and I look forward to many more years at CT Outdoors and many more new friends.  Please enjoy our tournaments and smack the idiots upside their heads for me.  Congratulations to all of you who have new additions to your families.....the only thing better than fishing!    Diane