November 13, 2023
A million and one thanks to all of you captains and anglers for taking part in the 2023 Fish For A Cure Tournament and Paul C. Dettor Captain’s Challenge. We hope you had a great time participating in the event, and hopefully by now you’ve at least partially recovered from that rockin’ cool Shore Party at the South Annapolis Yacht Centre, our official tournament home.
This year’s event was capped off with a phenomenal $164,095.20 chart-topping fundraising effort by team Reel Counsel. Congratulations, Reel Counsel, for the immense support you’ve generated for the cancer survivorship program. LaxFish raised an also-awesome $136,403.25 and Alternating Currents rounded out the Legends League with a whopping $65,514.90 in the till. In the Open League, Lady Jen and Team Yorktel blew away all expectations, raising an eye-popping $72,759.01 to take the crown. Team AllTackle came in second place with a hefty $47,351 catch, and Reeltors Hooked on Giving Back hit the $29,095 mark to take third place. Fantastic job, people, all the way around!
Then, there was a day of fishing…and what a beautiful day it was!! With unseasonably warm temperatures and relatively low winds (low compared to most past Fish For A Cure tournaments, for sure), Team Lukibelle won the three-rockfish stringer with a 92.5-inch entry, edging out Team RBC by two inches and third-place El Guapo by just over five inches. The Grand Slam went to Team FishTalk/PropTalk with a 72-inch blue catfish/white catfish/rockfish combination, which surprisingly included the longest fish of the tournament, a 33-inch blue cat. Miss Cleo topped the perch division with an impressive stringer of five fish at 52.75 inches. And Team FishTalk/PropTalk also took the Invasives category, after amassing 71.25 inches of blue catfish. Congratulations, to all of you winners!
Thanks to you participants, the Fish For A Cure team, and the Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center Foundaton team. In 2023 this event raised a spectacular total of more than $650,000. As you all know, each and every dollar will end up helping patients in the cancer survivorship program at the Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Geaton and JoAnn DeCesaris Cancer Institute. If you’re reading this right now, know that YOU and your time, effort, and energy, has helped countless cancer patients in their time of need.
We can all take a long fundraising rest for now, but soon we will be thinking about how to be even more successful in next year’s Fish For A Cure. Until then, rest easy and enjoy the glow of knowing that you’ve done something good. Something great. And for all the right reasons. Thank you — and we’ll see you in 2024.
View Paul C. Dettor Captain’s Challenge Standings
Fair winds and following seas,
Lenny Rudow
Angler-in-Chief, FishTalk
F4AC Volunteer and Captain’s Challenge Commentator
