Cheney Man 19th At Bass Championship

Cheney’s Eric Smith finished 19th in the 1996 Big Bass World Championships held last weekend in Afton, Okla.

Smith braved a surprise cold front and blustery winds on the choppy waters of Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees to land a 2.1-pound largemouth bass. The winner, Joseph Kipp of Wilmington, Del., caught a 4.52-pound largemouth and took home the top prize of $50,000, a new Dodge Dakota truck, and a fully-rigged bass boat.

Spirit Lake, Idaho-resident Don Schmidt was 27th after landing a 1.37-pound bass.

“We had expected a fish around 6 or 7 pounds, because a week before the fishermen had caught fish up to 7 pounds,” said Gordon Sprouse, one of the event’s organizers, commenting on the below-average weights. “The cold front conditions did stymie things. A lot of the fishermen said they aren’t seeing the same kind of activity.”

As well, 20 to 25 mile-per-hour winds that blew both Friday and Saturday made things tough on anglers.

Smith qualified for the competition when he caught a 9.54-pound largemouth bass from Newman Lake this summer to win the Washington state bass title.

Robin Ball, of Sharp Shooting Indoor Range in Spokane, gave one of the most popular programs at the recent National Shooting Range Symposium in Orlando, Fla.

“Robin has successfully broken into a tough business, giving encouragement to both women and men who would like to shoot or even run a shooting range,” said Robert Byrne, symposium sponsor from Wildlife Management Institute in Washington, D.C. “Women have been joining the shooting ranks over the past few years. But it’s sometimes tough to find places to shoot that are friendly to women and novice shooters.”

No one was surprised that Lloyd Campbell won the 1996 Squawfish Derby sponsored by the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club.

The annual derby, which ran from June 17-Sept. 2, is a low-key event that most anglers dabble in as an aside to serious trout or kokanee fishing.

Brad Malone, for example, won the youth category with a respectable 331 pounds of squawfish.

But Campbell, who lives in Sagle, Idaho, has taken to squawfish with a vengeance because he believes the native predators are contributing to the demise of the lake’s more popular game fish.

Campbell caught a staggering 11,042 pounds of squawfish this summer, most of which was destined for area gardens. Watch out next year for tomatoes with teeth. Campbell also caught a 10.7-pound squawfish, the largest recorded during the derby.

If you’re wondering who Campbell’s favorite fishing partner is, check out the No. 2 winner: his wife, Joyce Campbell. She caught 1,059 pounds of squawfish. Together, they took home $1,100 in prize money.

Malone won $700 for his effort, followed by second-place youth winner Bonnie Schellinger who earned $400.

Elizabeth Greig, one of the country’s most accomplished women at tying fly-fishing lures who was known for her adeptness and her unusual technique, died last month in Florida. She was 93.

An expert known for tying flies with her hands instead of with a conventional vise, Greig was an innovator in fly-fishing at a time when mostly men participated in the sport. In the late 1930s, Greig was a founder of Angler’s Roost, a popular fly-fishing shop in New York City.

Greig was born in Peebles, Scotland, on Sept. 10, 1902. Her father, a stonemason, taught her how to fly-fish on the shores of the River Tweed by day and how to tie flies at the kitchen table by night.