You assuredly have a relaxed idea of fishing tournament competition when you bring your wife and puppy along for the ride. It must be a good thing working well since everyone looks happy.
The perfect storm of grim weather forecasts and reports of extremely high water stuck at the heart of attendance at the 2015 Felsenthal Bream Fest. Despite these untoward prognostications, weather for the Friday afternoon and all-day Saturday event May 23-24, 2015, was close to perfect. For those who did attend it was a fun event that was everything one would expect from a traditional southern festival: corndogs, funnel cakes, kid’s attractions, music, and the fishing tournament. Best of all, since Arkansas temperatures are a tad below normal this year, the mosquitos declined to attend.
Click on the boy to see more 2015 Bream Fest pictures.
The water was indeed high, as in a pool level of 77 feet those days versus the 65 foot normal pool level. Despite that, the water was not murky or turbulent. It was a good day to fish and enjoy the great outdoors. Before we go much further, we urge you to check out the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com and see more pictures of the event. Because attendance was down, we do not have as many pictures of anglers this year, but the Almighty favored us with other photo opportunities. To give you an idea of how great the day was, take a gander at this short video of a trip across the lake. The mayor of Felsenthal, my friend Linda Newbury is the boat driver. I am holding down the stern and shooting pictures … and this video.
To clear up a common misconception, the green stuff you see on the water is not slime, scum or killer algae. It is duckweed, a dainty little aquatic plant that just absolutely loves southern waters. Just a moment after I shot this the lady in the back of the boat snagged a cypress limb.
Part of the fun of tournament fishing is to push the throttle forward and let the big engine eat. Woo-hoo!
The high pressure competitive atmosphere endemic to larger fishing tournament is delightfully absent at the Felsenthal Bream Fest. This one is for fun.
The nature of the tournament is family oriented fun.
As we scoured the lake for anglers, we ran across a couple of photo ops not seen every day if you are not a denizen of Felsenthal.
This appears to be an abandoned osprey nest. Osprey real estate birds would call it a “fixer upper, perfect for the DIY family.”
Somehow this dude made it up the tree, probably looking for an easy meal. He is about 40 feet above the lake and appears to be uncertain as to how he will escape. He’s non-poisonous.
Posing nutria apparently is not camera-shy
While tooling across the lake, we cruised in to the watery territory of a gaggle of nutria. A couple took a dive as soon as they saw us. The rest hung around to check us out just like we were checking them out. There was one who perched on a cypress limb. We gave him (or her) a good photo session.
The nutria was taking rays and apparently did not oppose our presence.
The nutria is saying, “I see you and could care less.”
Peekaboo!
OK Clyde, if I ignore you, will you leave?
The festival starts Friday night with visitin,’ baggo, and music.
The dude who has just pitched was the numero uno baggo guy Friday night.
Is the boy fascinated by Baggo and boogie? Or is he contemplating his recently nibbled Pringles chips?
This pooch loves to ride with Daddy. The guy apparently likes dogs because he has another one in his lap. All three are temporary residents of the Felsenthal Camp Ground.
If you live a reasonable distance, like to wet a hook and somehow missed the 2015 Felsenthal Bream Fest, you can reprieve yourself in a 2016. If you live too far or are providentially prevented from attendance, we will report again next year.
Thanks for looking,
Joe Dempsey
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind
http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html
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Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind 
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