A day without fishing…?

…or a nice fish picture —  would hardly be a day in these parts.

The St. Lawrence River town of Waddington got the headlines the last couple of weeks, as an online contest to name the Ultimate Fishing Town USA drew to a close. (Waddington lost in  a last minute voting surge by Roscoe,  “birthplace of dry fly fishing”, NY.) But St. Lawrence County’s Chamber of Commerce is leading an effort to put the whole St. Lawrence valley on the global fishing map. So, this weekend…Ogdensburg takes a turn.

Early tomorrow morning, a couple dozen Ft. Drum soldiers and their families will arrive in the city, near where The Vietman Moving Wall is currently installed,  for a Wounded Warriors fishing derby. They’ll go out on the river with certified fishing captains, and fish till noon. Awards will be handed out for the longest walleye and pike.

It’s a mostly volunteer effort and many of the captains and other volunteers are veterans themselves. So is Don Meissner, a nationally known local angler who’s the public face of the chamber’s campaign. That’s him, with the huge northern pike.

The chamber’s outreach and marketing coordinator, Alison Power, says it’s been quite touching, “I don’t want to get corny,” she says, “but it is truly veterans reaching out to veterans, across generations.”