This Corona virus has us all locked in our homes and while we are anxious to go fishing and enjoy life as we have done in the past, we still have to be cautious to stop the spread of this deadly disease and be housebound until we receive the OK to resume business as usual.
Because of this virus, it has been tough for the JCAA to do business with social distancing that severely limits what we can do around people. What we have done to keep our membership informed of JCAA’s activities is to have our meetings broadcasted on ZOOM. Our first club membership meeting on ZOOM was held on March 3lst, the last Tuesday of the month when we normally have our meetings. Of course, we had some start- up issues with it and confusion about using it. But, given this virus situation, we have to use ZOOM so that we can all stay connected with each other. I do believe we will get more comfortable in using ZOOM for our meetings and it does save driving time and tolls for JCAA members that travel from distant locations to our meetings that are held at the Jersey Coast Shark Anglers Building in Herbertsville. While we may resume meetings at this location when the virus scare is gone, we will still continue to use ZOOM at the Shark Anglers Building to conduct our meetings.
In regard to using ZOOM, please remember that the use of ZOOM is for the use of JCAA member clubs only! Do NOT share our password and other ZOOM information with non-JCAA members. Our JCAA ZOOM meetings, just like our other JCAA meetings in the past, are open only to JCAA members.
Not all is doom and gloom! Our fluke tournament has been moved from its June date to September 12th and our Awards Ceremony will be held at the Resorts Casino in Atlantic City on September 18th! As a weigh master of JCAA fluke tournaments for many years, I have heard so many times participants say, “we are looking forward to going to Atlantic City for the Awards Ceremony.” It took awhile for us to get back to going to Atlantic City, but we are there now for all of us to enjoy it. Resorts Casino is providing JCAA with a number of incentives for our tournament participants with discounts at restaurants and hotel rooms. But, more information on our fluke tournament and the Awards Ceremony is in another section of this newsletter that is provided by our Fluke Tournament Director, Paul Turi.
The success of our tournament depends on all of our member clubs participating in this tournament. With having Resorts Casino as a partner for our fluke tournament, we want to see a major uptick in the number of boats in our tournament. We are back to our original formula that made our tournaments so successful in the past by having the Awards Ceremony in Atlantic City. This is a great way to celebrate the tournament by bringing your wife, family or significant other to not only collect tournament prize money, door prizes, possibly win a boat, motor and trailer and to also enjoy Resorts and all that this casino has to offer. So come on down to Resorts and have fun!
The tough economic times caused by this virus are affecting all of us and the JCAA is no exception. Because of the virus situation, our High Roller raffle tickets cannot be sold as they usually do because of social distancing. Accordingly, the JCAA has moved its original drawing date for these tickets from May 14th to August 13th so that we have more time to sell them. Please purchase as many of these tickets as you can. By doing so, you will support the JCAA so that it can support you! The High Roller raffle tickets will be in the mail shortly.
Finally, I am in the process of setting up a meeting with members of the recreational fishing community in October to meet with Mr. Mike Pentony, Northeast Regional Administrator of NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Services), to discuss a number of issues that are having a negative impact on our recreational fishing industry. We are witnessing tackle shops closing, party and charter boats going out of business and we want to see this decline of our recreational fishing industry reversed! I will keep you updated on the progress of this effort.
