Peninsula Salt Water Sport Fisherman’s Association’s Annual Awards Banquet

The annual awards banquet of the PSWSFA was held this weekend. As always, everyone had a great time and a lot of prizes were given out.

The Critter of the Year Award was won by Jorj Head for a big Triple Tail that he caught in the bay along the Baltimore Channel while casting to the buoys for cobia. A common catch to our south, the triple tail is a very rare catch inside of the Chesapeake Bay.

Angler of the Year was won by Dave Boyce. He was the points winner based on the many different species of fish he entered throughout the year.

The George C. Robertson Memorial Fisherman of the Year Award was presented to Nelson Ortiz. This award does not go to the person who catches the most or the largest fish but rather goes to the individual who has done the most for recreational fishermen throughout the year. Nelson was an easy choice for this award.

The Dr. Alec Boatwright Memorial Rockfish Trophy was won by Robert Blackwell with his monster, 64 pound 2 ounce rockfish.

An Outstanding Contribution Award was presented to Mike and Christy Hannah from Dare Marina for all that they do for the fishing club.

The Fish of the Year Award was a problem again this year. Last year, we had multiple worthy candidates but were able to narrow it down to two and for the first time had co-Fish of the Year. They were Barclay Shepard’s World Record Speckled Trout and Jen Manus’ World Record Blueline Tilefish. We never thought that we would have that problem again but this year, it was even worse. We had eight club records broken and any of those fish would be worthy winners of this award. Jeff Dail set the state and club record for Golden Tilefish. Bob Manus set the All-Tackle World Record for Blackbelly Rosefish. He set the All-Tackle World Record and State Record for Snowy Grouper. On top of that, he caught the largest wahoo in Virginia during 2007 and set the new club record for that species. Oh, by the way, he also set the club record for true Albacore Tuna. There were many other impressive catches made by club members in 2007 but we selected only one to be the Fish of the Year. Chris Boyce’s 66-pound State Record, club record, and pending IGFA All-Tackle World Record Snowy Grouper was selected as the PSWSFA Fish of the Year for 2007. We had some year when even a world record is not good enough to win you the Fish of the Year award.

Many other awards were given out including Youth Awards, Tournament Winners, and Species Awards. Thanks to our wonderful sponsors, we had an abundance of raffle prizes.

www.pswsfa.com

Winner of the George Robertson Award and the new President of the PSWSFA, Nelson Ortiz:




Critter of the Year:

Boatwright Award:




Angler of the Year:

Some fish that did not win Fish of the Year:

State and Club Record:




World and State Record:

World Record:




Club Record, note that the PSWSFA retired its old weight records when it switched to lengths. Club member, Irv Fenton holds the state record for albacore tuna:

Largest in the State and new Club Record:




All these and other impressive catches did not win do to Chris Boyce's PSWSFA Fish of the Year: