The 21st annual Trout Unlimited Chili Cook Off will be held on Oct. 8 at Ridge Ferry Park in Rome. As usual we expect well over 100 cook sites to be occupied and chili cook teams from across the state will be vying for the title of best chili in the North Georgia area.

Last year the number of cook teams increased due to the fact that Atlanta no longer has a major chili cooking event. Even though the weather made the cook off a little bit of a challenge, the teams seemed to enjoy themselves, and we hope that they will return this year and bring more teams with them.

This year as in the past few years, team registration will take place online, and payment for registration is by credit card. Sponsors of the TU Chili Cook Off are the only ones that may reserve cook sites prior to that date and are the only ones who may reserve a cook site and not cook.

You can go to the Coosa Valley TU website: http://coosavalley.tu.org to find out more about Trout Unlimited, our chapter and what we do for our streams and our community. Visit coosavalley.tu.org/ coosavalley/ trout- unlimitedchili-cook-off to learn more about the cook off and coosavalley.tu.org/coosavalley/cookoff-detail-rules for detailed rules.

We will accept walk up entries any time on Friday and those teams will pay by cash or check. Reserving a cook site costs $45 per site and teams may have a maximum of two cook sites.

Only those teams that cook are allowed to reserve a cook site. Any team that reserves a site and fails to enter a chili may be banned from future competitions if the TU Chili Cook Off officials feel that it is justified.

More about the Cook Off will follow in upcoming articles.

The following is a story about a fishing adventure taken by Robert Bold 51 years ago. Robert is the Conservation Chairman for the Coosa Valley Chapter:

In 1865 my dad and I drove 18 hours to Lake of the Woods, Minnesota, to fish for north- ern pike, muskie and walleye. Usually, we drove another six hours to Ear Fall, Ontario, but we were being lazy. We didn’t have much luck and asked the fish camp owner if there were any seldom fished lakes that we could hike in to. He said yes, and he had a boat there but he wasn’t sure it had survived the winter. He gave us tools, patching materials, and directions. We hiked in about a mile and found the boat. It took us several hours to repair the hull. We put it in the water and it leaked like a sieve. We caught a few small northern pike from the bank and called it quits. We packed up the 1960 Ford station wagon and hit the road north to our usual spot. Before we got to the actual camp we crossed a damn on the English River and decid- ed to cast in the outflow. I hooked what I thought was an enormous fish. We were using medium/heavy rods with casting reels and 15-pound test braided line with steel leaders. I fought this fish for 20 minutes. When I got it to the shore it was a sucker but I had hooked squarely in the anus. So the fish could swim away from the line in a normal manner. We laughed about that, went to camp, and had a great five days with big fish ... at least this big. –Robert Bold

The Coosa Valley TU chapter has members who have fished across the country and beyond. The knowledge they have is willingly shared with others.

Come to a TU meeting and they will pass on that knowledge.