07-13-2015, 05:22 PM
Wanted to give a big Thank You to all the volunteers, both boaters and non-boaters for all you did to help make this a great event once again. We had 50 boats show up and 82 veterans. It was a tight scramble to try and get them all on boats. We did have 4 that showed up pretty late that we did not have any boats left for so we were able to take them on a shore fishing adventure. We're hoping next year to have more boaters.
We had great weather and the fishing was excellent. I saw a lot of large kokanee brought in to the cleaning station as well as many trout. I did not hear of anyone not catching anything. The lunch was a big hit with the veterans. We had a lot of all 3 kinds of Subway sandwiches left over which went home with the vets.
I want to call out Trevor (Wipermac) for doing a great job wrangling the boats on BFT and the boats and volunteers from Hill AFB. Over half of our support both boats and non-boaters comes from the Hill team. We couldn't get this done without them.
It takes a large team to put something like this together and execute it well. Over the years of doing this we've learned each year and gotten better at making it all happen smoothly. This was the best so far in that we had all the boats out fishing by 7:45. This was do in large part to the more than 20 volunteers working on the ground and Dr Klinger of the VA getting his people to the ramp on time.
Our sponsors are the other part of this equation that makes this all possible. I have been fortunate enough to line up some key corporate sponsors that keep this going every year. The company I work for, IM FLASH has been the key corporate sponsor the last several years providing over half of our funding and half of our volunteers many of which are able to take a free paid vacation day to help with this event.
Redmond Minerals (Real Salt) has been another key partner year in and year out helping us put on the luncheon. This year we partnered with Subway, Thanks Pikeman!
Calibration Solutions is another long term corporate partner.
Maniac Custom Lures provides us with a nice package of soft baits every year for each vet.
Pure Fishing (Berkley) provides us with Gulp and Powerbait every year.
Smith and Edwards helps secure the rods and reels at cost for us each year and spools them up with line so they are ready to go.
We also have several other sponsors that contribute each and every year:
Utah Bass Nation
Walmart Riverton
Utah DWR (helps with licensing)
American Land and Leisure (pavilion for 2 days , everyone free entry through the gate)
Knights of Columbus
Ace Rents
Starbuck's
Sportsman's Warehouse (riverdale)
First Fidelity Financial Services
Colonial Flag
PACKFAN
Autumn Sound Company
Fisher Group
US Forest Service
SB White PC
BFT Community
I want to issue a very special thank you to Catherine Holt of Draper. She is a fantastic artist and she brought up 5 of her water color wildlife paintings beautifully framed and donated them to the raffle. These were really beautiful paintings and as Karma would have it the very first one drawn went to the veteran that Catherine and her husband took out!! It just couldn't have happened any better and she was very emotional. If you know her please let her know how special this was.
If you have the chance to support any of these places, please do as they support us year in and year out.
Thank you to all the BFT community for supporting this event each year. It is one of the favorite events each year for the vets at the VA.
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We had great weather and the fishing was excellent. I saw a lot of large kokanee brought in to the cleaning station as well as many trout. I did not hear of anyone not catching anything. The lunch was a big hit with the veterans. We had a lot of all 3 kinds of Subway sandwiches left over which went home with the vets.
I want to call out Trevor (Wipermac) for doing a great job wrangling the boats on BFT and the boats and volunteers from Hill AFB. Over half of our support both boats and non-boaters comes from the Hill team. We couldn't get this done without them.
It takes a large team to put something like this together and execute it well. Over the years of doing this we've learned each year and gotten better at making it all happen smoothly. This was the best so far in that we had all the boats out fishing by 7:45. This was do in large part to the more than 20 volunteers working on the ground and Dr Klinger of the VA getting his people to the ramp on time.
Our sponsors are the other part of this equation that makes this all possible. I have been fortunate enough to line up some key corporate sponsors that keep this going every year. The company I work for, IM FLASH has been the key corporate sponsor the last several years providing over half of our funding and half of our volunteers many of which are able to take a free paid vacation day to help with this event.
Redmond Minerals (Real Salt) has been another key partner year in and year out helping us put on the luncheon. This year we partnered with Subway, Thanks Pikeman!
Calibration Solutions is another long term corporate partner.
Maniac Custom Lures provides us with a nice package of soft baits every year for each vet.
Pure Fishing (Berkley) provides us with Gulp and Powerbait every year.
Smith and Edwards helps secure the rods and reels at cost for us each year and spools them up with line so they are ready to go.
We also have several other sponsors that contribute each and every year:
Utah Bass Nation
Walmart Riverton
Utah DWR (helps with licensing)
American Land and Leisure (pavilion for 2 days , everyone free entry through the gate)
Knights of Columbus
Ace Rents
Starbuck's
Sportsman's Warehouse (riverdale)
First Fidelity Financial Services
Colonial Flag
PACKFAN
Autumn Sound Company
Fisher Group
US Forest Service
SB White PC
BFT Community
I want to issue a very special thank you to Catherine Holt of Draper. She is a fantastic artist and she brought up 5 of her water color wildlife paintings beautifully framed and donated them to the raffle. These were really beautiful paintings and as Karma would have it the very first one drawn went to the veteran that Catherine and her husband took out!! It just couldn't have happened any better and she was very emotional. If you know her please let her know how special this was.
If you have the chance to support any of these places, please do as they support us year in and year out.
Thank you to all the BFT community for supporting this event each year. It is one of the favorite events each year for the vets at the VA.
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Sunrise on the water
s and that everyone caught fish. 