{"id":9065,"date":"2015-09-13T12:30:49","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T16:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=9065"},"modified":"2015-10-14T12:39:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T16:39:26","slug":"hyattsville-boy-wins-boat-grand-prize-at-maryland-fishing-challenge-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2015\/09\/13\/hyattsville-boy-wins-boat-grand-prize-at-maryland-fishing-challenge-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyattsville Boy Wins Boat Grand Prize at Maryland Fishing Challenge Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grand<\/a>

Grand Prize winner, Luke Adams, with his new boat<\/p><\/div>\n

DNR awards more than $40,000 in cash and prizes<\/span><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

More than $40,000 in cash, prizes and merchandise was awarded to lucky anglers this morning at the 2015 Maryland Fishing Challenge Finale<\/a>. Nearly 2,000 people, including sponsors, contestants and their guests, attended the celebration held in conjunction with the Maryland Seafood Festival at Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Maryland Fishing Challenge celebrates our state\u2019s excellent fishing, and provides a little extra incentive for anglers, young and old, novice and pro, to get outside and cast a line,\u201d Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Mark Belton said. \u201cKeeping the longstanding tradition of fishing alive in Maryland is important because anglers not only benefit our local economy, they aid in conservation and management efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Labor Day last year, more than 1,000 anglers qualified to participate in today\u2019s grand prize drawing by catching an Angler Award-sized fish \u2500 a select species above a certain length.<\/p>\n

Walking away with today\u2019s grand prize of a boat, motor and trailer from Bass Pro Shops and Tracker Boats was Luke Adams, 12, of Hyattsville. Adams caught an Angler Award<\/em>-qualifying, 13.25-inch white perch in the Chesapeake Bay off Calvert County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am in shock,\u201d said Adams. \u201cMy dad takes me fishing every weekend. I can\u2019t wait to use this boat with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

DNR awarded a total of $23,000 to 14 randomly selected anglers. The 9 $2,000 winners listed below caught award-sized fish, drawn evenly among the three catch regions \u2013 the Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic and freshwater areas. Prizes also included fishing\/tackle packages from Bill\u2019s Outdoor Center, coolers filled with Costa gear, and gift cards from AllTackle, Marty\u2019s Bait & Tackle Shop, PotomacSnakehead.com and Tochterman\u2019s. All contestants left with commemorative shirts, courtesy of Under Armour.<\/p>\n

The youth component of the challenge celebrated 12 lucky Maryland Youth Fishing Club anglers, who were randomly selected from their DNR Angler\u2019s Log<\/a> online postings. These individuals were awarded guided fishing trips and gear from the sponsors.<\/p>\n

Flying Dog Brewery presented a check for $8,230 to the Maryland Seafood Marketing\u2019s True Blue program.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor eleven years now this contest has been going strong, thanks to our incredible sponsors,\u201d DNR Assistant Secretary for Aquatic Resources David Goshorn said. \u201cWe are grateful to have partners that share in our mission of introducing people to the joys of fishing, inspiring future generations of stewards along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

*The $2,000 winners by catch region are:<\/p>\n

Chesapeake:<\/u><\/p>\n

Kien Le of Silver Spring with a white perch<\/p>\n

Brian Haney of Chesapeake Beach with a Spanish mackerel<\/p>\n

Randy Bohlman of Annapolis with a chain pickerel (catch & release)<\/p>\n

Freshwater:<\/u><\/p>\n

Dennis Butler of Abingdon with a rainbow trout<\/p>\n

Jason Sweeney of Frederick with a rainbow trout<\/p>\n

Wydell Buzard of Middletown with a rainbow trout<\/p>\n

Atlantic:<\/u><\/p>\n

Jordan Tibo of Baltimore with a hammerhead shark (catch and release)<\/p>\n

Buddy Bricker of Dover, Pa. with a summer flounder<\/p>\n

James Dasch of Ridgely with a blue marlin (catch & release)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DNR awards more than $40,000 in cash and prizes More than $40,000 in cash, prizes and merchandise was awarded to lucky anglers this morning at the 2015 Maryland Fishing Challenge Finale. Nearly 2,000 people, including sponsors, contestants and their guests, attended the celebration held in conjunction with the Maryland Seafood Festival at Sandy Point State  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","category-parks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9065"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9073,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9065\/revisions\/9073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}