At our recent Christmas Party, tournament committee chair Bill Morrison announced the results. The top five (5) places were awarded Orvis gift cards. In addition, every participant had one ticket for each species they entered placed in the Consolation Drawing for over a dozen prizes. For the final grand prize drawing, all tickets - including those of winners - were placed back in the bucket for a Redington Rise fly reel valued around $200. Congratulations to Rich Hudson who was the lucky winner of the reel!
For 2023, we had 20 participants, slightly down from 22 the year before. We also had the second highest number of entries (170) ever, and the most entries ever from one participant (36).
Among the most common species registered were bluegill (18), rainbow trout (12), longear sunfish (12), largemouth bass (9) and green sunfish (9). Altogether 55 species were entered, including 10 new species never previously entered in the Mixed Bag. Some of the more interesting species included: Black Spotted Topminnow, Cahaba Bass, Lowland Cichlid, Orangespotted Sunfish, and Creek Chub. But the winner of "Most Interesting Species" was Carlton Townsend for a Snake River Cutthroat caught on the Norfork River.
By state, Louisiana had the most entries (108) followed by Arkansas (40), Alabama (8), northwest Florida (7), Mississippi (4) and Oklahoma (3). The most common waters for entries were the Little Missouri River in southwest Arkansas (25), Indian Creek (16), Little River (10), LSUA Ponds (8), and Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge (7). Altogether there were entries from 52 bodies of water, up from 48 last year.
The most common fly patterns were the Soft Hackle Beadhead Hares Ear (25), Woolybugger (10), Popper (10), Mad Dog (9), Rio Bandito (8), Clouser Minnow (8), and the Bully Bluegill - Rosenbohm Edition.
Here's the final standings for the 2023 Mixed Bag:
1st - Bill Morrison (36 entries)
2nd - Chris Williams (26)
3rd - Jim Johnson (21)
4th - Noah Hoyt (11)
5th - Joel Dinnat (10)
Many thanks to Bill Morrison for his efforts in administrating the Mixed Bag entries and compiling these statistics.
The 2024 Mixed Bag will kickoff on January 1st. The form will go active shortly after midnight.
