Sports

The Prater's Creek Gazette

15th Issue Fall 2007 Page #10

 As Compiled by Sports Editor Bubba McCalister and his brother Dorris

Fishing Tourney Generates Local Economy

When C.A.R.P. (Carp Angling Reeling People) announced that their annual Masters Tournament would be held here in Prater’s Creek, local merchants knew their businesses would get a big shot in the arm with all of the fishermen and fans frequenting their stores and shops. But after all of the sales slips were added, it looks like the tourney generated far more money than ever dreamed. According to Mayor Allen Jones, as he told the Gazette, “the ‘Super Bowl of Carp Fishing’ brought in a little over $212 to area merchants!” Every morning the Six Mile Café was packed with fisherman, crews, and fans digging into the “Lumberjack Special”-three eggs, country ham and red eye gravy, grits, and a stack of pancakes for $0.85. Over at Livwright’s General Store, they couldn’t keep dough and molasses stocked quick enough with all the fisherman grabbing them up to make their bait concoctions.

Although ESPN, who always covers the B.A.S.S. Masters tourney, did not show up, local cable company Northland Cable aired nearly 90 minutes of the tourney live. Northland bumped real estate listings and lost kitten announcements to air the tournament.

Sunday Afternoon at the “BEARS DEN”

The smell of hickory smoked pig fills the air. The horseshoe pits, where an hour ago was some of the fiercest competition and cussing, sit silent. A marching band tune suddenly blasts out of the stereo and an entire living room of drunk hillbillies wearing bear heads, and/or decked out in other team gear, start singing with the recording: “Bear Down Chicago Bears!” It’s kickoff time.

The Prater’s Creek chapter of the Bears Den has been meeting for years at the farmhouse of Grandpa of The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show. “We used to listen to the games on the short wave radio” Grandpa explains. “ and every once in awhile we’d get them on the TV. Then a few years ago I got me one of them satellite dishes so we could watch the Bears every Sunday.”

Things can get a little, well, a lot, rowdy over at The Drovers farm on Sundays during the fall. Things got a little too out of hand after last year’s Super Bowl loss to the Colts when Grandpa was arrested on drunken and disorderly charges (see Gazette Spring 2007 issue). According to Pickens County Sheriff David Stone, the county supervisors were going to put a halt to Grandpa’s gameday parties until Grandpa talked them out of it. “I paid ‘em all off with a jug of my likker, I mean, medicine” Grandpa told the Gazette. The county also agreed to send a county truck out to the farm just to pick up all of the empty cans and bottles for recycling.

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