For 28 years the OCARC in Orange has been sponsoring a fishing tournament as a fund raiser for its clients. In 1956 a group of parents joined together to form an association to provide an avenue for their children after they completed school. Originally OCARC was located at the Thomen Community Center. Land was donated and buildings were built with private money to relocate OCARC to its present home of 8th Street and Park Avenue.
John Thomas (in hat) with OCARC says the tournament started as a result of OCARC getting into the fishing lure business. Thomas recalls they were always looking for some kind of work for their clients and so they bought a spinner bait company called the River Rat from a man in Bridge City. The clients started making about 150,000 spinner baits for sale at Walmart. Thomas adds when they checked the numbers they were losing 23 cents a lure so OCARC got out of the fishing lure business and started the fishing tournament.
When the tournament started 28 years ago there were 20 categories of different fish and the weigh in was not the show it is now according to Thomas. In 1987 when the tournament started it took the first two or three years for Thomas to realize 20 different categories were too many fish to manage. Originally, the fishermen were allowed to come in and weigh their catch all day, but then OCARC went to the show for the weigh in ceremony like is currently done, and Thomas cut the categories down to twelve.
Thomas tells the tale of a special category of fish that remains part of the tournament. Former constables Don Hubbard and Clyde Jordan years ago won the grinnell category for two years in a row. When Thomas began eliminating some of the categories of fish the grinnel was on the list to be released. Hubbard pleaded with Thomas not to eliminate the grinnel, so Thomas relented and the “Don Hubbard” Mudcat has been in the tournament for 25 years. Hubbard pays $50 every year to have that special fish in the tournament.
The number of fish in the competition may have changed as has the official weigh in, but Thomas believes the tournament has remained family oriented to this day.
Thomas says, “It’s always a good time. The main thing we do is this is more of a family fishing group. The kids fish for free and we usually have about a third of the winners that are children or young people boys and girls. We actually have some families that were fishing as kids and now are bringing their kids to fish, we’ve got several of those that are still fishing in the tournament.”
The OCARC Fishing Tournament starts Friday evening at 5:00. The entry fee is $25 for adults and can be paid at the OCARC office at the corner of 8th Street and Park Avenue or online at the OCARC website ocarc.com. The tournament concludes with the weigh in at the City of Orange Boat Ramp at 6:00 on Saturday evening.
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
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