James Niggemeyer – In Arkansas Michelle Short Fundraiser and Elites on the River

The last week was pretty eventful; my son got sick, had some kind of a virus with throwing up and anyway through a series of bloody noses and it’s just been kind of an eventful week.

Just before I left to come to Arkansas I had a flat tire just, all kinds of different things and setbacks but we finally hit the road though and we headed up the road to Lake Dardanelle for the Michelle Short Scholarship Fund Benefit Tournament that Kevin and Kerry Short put on.

I believe this is the 6th Annual and just an incredible event. It is the first time for me to participate. I really enjoyed it, and would love to do it again sometime. I fished with my son Daniel; you know, he’s five years old. He’s just really getting to the place where he’s catching fish on his own; casting out, and getting a bite, knowing what it feels like. So it’s pretty neat, for him to fish his first event; we just had a great time.

It was super, super hot it was like 100 and something heat index. It’s super humid and he only made it ‘til about 1 o’clock, I had to take him to the bank and Mom picked him up. But what a trooper! You know we have 2:20 weigh in and he finally waved the white flag at about 1 o’clock.

We went “duck hunting” Kevin and Terry put out these rubber ducks on the lake and they are good for various prizes like a Power Pole and I believe a Big Green Egg Barbeque and just all kinds of different stuff. I’ve never been to an event where they just had so many great prizes and the pay back was incredible and they had different divisions like adult/youth and adult/adult different things like that where a person could win in one and not in the other; it was pretty neat.

Now Daniel, they did give all the youth a brand new St Croix rod and reel spooled up with line and ready to go, so Daniel got his very first bait casting rod and we got a Strike King jig on there and he is practicing with that and he’s lovin’ it!

So it’s been a pretty eventful week and today is the first day for the Elite Series event on the Arkansas River and I am looking forward to these next two weeks. Really hoping to make a big charge up in the standings and really would love to squeak into the Classic.

I’m just really looking forward to fishing well and putting forth my best effort to try to do the best that I can in the last two events. I still have two Opens in the fall and looking at some other different events to fish as well and there is a bunch of stuff around the house and only a few that I am allowed to fish, but looking at some different events there.

So, really excited for this week, it’s been super smokin’ hot and river fishing is my style, I love it and it’s shallow dirty water and power fishing, so it should be neat, I’m looking forward to it.

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