Dehlan, a veteran of this blog's photo contests, made the error of having human body parts in this nice photo of a beautiful Westslope cutthroat trout caught in an unnamed Central Washington river.
I see that many readers are now sending in photo contest entries, but the rules have evidently gone out the window.
This all reminds me of a senior journalism seminar during my days at the University of Oregon. We students endured a very boring instructor who had the bad taste to assign a giant project to a bunch of Senioritis-plagued students who would graduate -- hopefully -- in about five weeks.
We whined and sniveled as only journalism students can, and the instructor caved and pretty much let us do a much smaller project. I was mightily ticked off, as I had already completed my work and I had suffered through a few sleepless nights.
But I was so happy to know that my degree would be in my hot, jobless hands in a few weeks.
As a review, this contest is supposed to be shots of fish -- with no humans present.
Well, class.... Many of you are ignoring this rule. I'm feeling flush with power at the moment -- and the glow of lucking into a bright, line-peeling coho salmon while fishing for pink salmon at Puget Sound's Dash Point -- that I have a solution.
I will show off all photos, but the fish-only rule still stands. The best rule-breaking photo will get a spool of fly-tying thread. The color? Red, of course.
We've got more rule-breakers here! Cory Dixon sent in this shot of an amazing brown trout caught from an unnamed water. This photo also includes a human -- I suspect it is Cory himself showing off what may have been his best trout of the season.
Cory is not eligible for the photo contest prizes of one dozen, 6 or 3 flies for Oregon's Deschutes River. Cory also is not eligible for the consolation prize of red thread for the rule breakers. Why? Cory should be satisfied with catching one heckuva brown trout. Cory can appeal my ruling -- but only if he tells me the location of this terrific fish.
On we go....
Clifton Molatore, who lives in Portland, Oregon, sent in this great shot of his daughter and her grandfather posing with Diamond Lake rainbow trout. The fish doesn't look as happy as the humans.
Clifton is in the running for red thread! As the father of a fly-fishing daughter who is now away at university, I am a sucker for shots of kids with nice fish.
Now, this is a legal shot!
Michael Thompson, AKA Bad Fish, sent this shot of a cutthroat charging a fly. Bad Fish gets extra-credit for following the rules.
As for the rest of you, the photo contest -- just one shot that just shows a fish -- is still going through Labor Day.
Send in your shots to [email protected]. I'm also open to suggestions for the next photo contest -- which will probably start in October and run through Thanksgiving.
Hmmm. It seems that I tend to end contests on national holidays.....
