Event: Tristate Skindivers Club 6th Annual Species Meet
Location: Weigh In at the Bon Vue Inn - Narragansett, Rhode Island
Last Sunday on August 6th the Tristate Skindivers Club hosted what has grown to become the premier spearfishing event in the North East each season. With over 65 competitors this season this event has become the ultimate competition for freedive spearfishermen in New England due to the level of competition, grand support form sponsors and the awesome spearfishing community we have up here in the North East. The format for the competition is called a "Species Meet" which is different from the usual total weight tournaments often hosted and requires divers to be able to harvest and weigh in 1 fish from each fish species available to hunt and weigh in as listed in the tournament rules. The more different species you can harvest, the more points you accumulate, the better your points standing at weigh in time. Competitors have a full day to hunt Rhode Island waters from sunrise that morning and require them to be at weigh in at 5:00 pm . There is also a max limit on points that can be given for a particular single fish (like a striped bass), so you actually don't do any better to shoot a 50 lb bass as you do to shoot a 22 lb bass. So your time would probably be better managed to take that 22 lb bass and get on with finding some other species. Ultimately this type of scoring format benefits those spearfisherman who are all around great hunters, which is the purpose of the tournament... a chance for the areas spearos and spearas to showcase their skills. Due to this unique scoring format, great prizes, fun venue and awesome spearfishing community... this event has grow into the success that it is.
First lets start with a heavy back pat for the Tristate Skindivers Club which except members to cover every state in New England + New York. The founding members of 3SSD had a vision to start a true non profit spearfishing club and find worthy causes to donate funds raised to that they raise each season, and give something back to the community. Each year they select a great benefit to donate the money raised from this event to. This season 2016 they selected to donate all the funds raised to Dana-Farber Cancer Research , what an incredibly worthy cause to help out. So in addition to donating the funds, they collected fish donated from competitors that day to cater another fund raiser for Dana-Farber which they were catering on August 20th. That is a whole lot of work and an incredible amount of heart. Do not worry, if you could not attend this meet and still want to help out You Can Make a Donation Directly To Dana-Farber Here ! I am sure Tristate thanks you in advance for your donation.
Second, lets check out the t-shirt that is given to each competitor as part of their $35 entry fee. It has become a tradition each year for 3SSD to offer a cool and different t-shirt for this event and this season they were blessed with an incredible piece of artwork from the one and only Caleb Goins . His artwork of the striped bass was perfect for this years shirt !
Third, there is the sponsors who provide prizes for the competitors. New England Freedive Spearfishing Co and many others including HammerHead Spearguns and Crist Spears, Omer, Mako, Dip and Dive, SporTube make it possible for each competitor to win a prize in the free gear raffle after the weigh in. As a sponsor, NEF loves being involved with this event not only for the fun and feel good fund raising effort, but it also allows us to showcase some products we donate to get them in front of spearfisherman on the prize tables. I usually spend the afternoon answering questions about the gear I have donated which always seems to bring a big interest. If you should have an interest in becoming a sponsor for next year's 2017 Species Meet, please contact Tristate Skindivers Club via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TristateSkindiversSpearfishingClub/?fref=ts
or via EMAIL LINK HERE
Fourth, the Bon Vue Inn in their generosity provide the perfect outdoor venue to host the weigh in. Competitors and their guests get to enjoy some fun drinks and great food during the gathering. Shout out to our favorite server - always smiling, sometimes cart wheeling "Tracey", who has worked every event 3SSD has hosted their and made sure it was a success.
Finally the review of the competition ! Well the winds were blowing a little in the morning and turning up some mid size seas in most SW facing areas of Rhode Island with expectations of showers in the afternoon. Those that ventured out to Block Island in search of their big bass had an interesting day battling rolling seas, but the fish were there, and those that went out got their big bass and multiple species. For those that shore and or kayak dived, we had similar conditions. Where we were not battling bigger swells most areas had little visibility to hunt fish in due to the winds. The area in Point Judith where my dive buddy and I hunted seemed to have the bigger seas but also hunt-able visibility, which was a pleasant surprise. I managed to harvest 2 species a tautog and a scup to weigh in but i could not find a shoot-able size bass and black sea bass before i finally decided I had had enough of rolling in the big seas in the kayak and decided to head to the weigh in and get ready. It was 5:00 somewhere and I knew exactly where.
65 competitors weighed in in 2 categories Boat or Shore/Kayak. As usual some impressive fish hit the scales with the variety consisting of striped bass, tautog, black sea bass, scup, bluefish, trigger fish and fluke. Below is a list of the top three divers in each category.
Overall high scores/ winner
1. Ricardo Cruelles. 5 fish; 93 points.
2. Kelly Gillette. 5 fish; 91 points
3. Kenneth Julian MartÃn. 5 fish; 81 points.
Kayak / shore:
1. Bobby Morin, 2 fish 28 points
2. Garrick G., 2 fish 27 points
3. Ed Wormold, 2 fish, 26.5 points
Congratulations to the top diver in the shore/kayak category Bobby Morin who beat out the rest of us who only weighed in 2 species in this category, but his 2 were bigger... well done Bobby !
Congratulations to NEF Team Diver Ricardo Cruelles (@rcruelles) who won the boat category with an impressive stringer which included a striped bass, 11 lb tautog, blue fish, black sea bass and a trigger I was very excited for Ricardo because I know how much work he puts into competing in this event each year with multiple scouting efforts. He prides himself to represent my NEF Shop well in events he competes in and when someone puts that much heart into their work, it is twice as exciting to see him get the win. SHAKA.
After the weigh in and winners are decided it is time for Tristate to run their famous gear raffle. It is always great to see divers get a chance to win a piece of gear they may have needed. There always seems to be plenty of prizes to allow every competitor to win something.
When it is all said and done, for me it is the camaraderie of the gathering at these events that I look forward to the most. A chance to see spearos and spearas from outside the area I may only be lucky enough to see once a year at this event. Dive stories and laughs are traded over a cold beverage or two and plans are made to get together for future dives. New England is truly blessed with one of the best spearfishing communities anywhere.
Watch the Tristate Skindivers Club Facebook Page for next years event if you would like to compete.
Credit to Stephanie Young for some of these great images.
Thank You to ALL who make this possible.
Give thanks to mother ocean for bringing us all together and watching over us for another day.
Dive Safe and be Good to Each Other,
Tog Cult
