2013 Pay it Forward Paddle

We all had a blast at the 2013 Pay it Forward Paddle on 7/13 and raised over $10,500 for our brother mooch!!!   

For those who don't know, PIF stands for Pay it Forward, and this was the fourth year that we have organized a paddle to honor and celebrate our brothers battling Cancer, along with a fundraising raffle to help raise some much needed $$ for them.

We raised over $6,000 at the 2010 PIF, over $9,000 at the 2011 PIF, and over $7,900 at the 2012 PIF. This year we knocked it out of the park with over $10,500!!!

This year the recipient of the PIF funds was Joel "Mooch" Lotilla. A kayak fishing legend, hero, brother and dear friend. He is currently on Hospice care after battling cancer for several years....

TON of pics over on NCKA, but here is my little report and vid:

I left Santa Cruz at 530 am with Joe bloodbath and headed up to HMB.  Found dpshim and FishMaster1 spooning in Dan's van, then spent some quality time hanging out with mooch.

Was SOOO happy to see him looking so well and happy. Tremendous improvement since the last time I saw him...the power of love and brotherhood is all I can think of.... 

Not much else I needed to do cuz G-Whiz had the prizes covered, Al and Sara were all over ticket sales and FM1 was directing and coordinating the potluck set up so headed out onto the water. 

Got to the green buoy and dropped a swim bait....hooked up shortly and was fighting pretty good...comes up...WTF?? Shark!?!   Spiny dogfish to be exact!! Cool fish and ton of fun to fight on light tackle!!

Caught several more then we all rafted up for the traditional on the water happy hour.   

We spent some time talking about the reasons we were out there...about mooch...about shicken...about BigFoot's son Ty...

Then the LIVE ACTION commenced!  Bloodbath showed us all how to do a boat walk, Racinrob hooked up and we all assumed another dogfish...I was floating in the water at the time...dove down to get some footage of the shark...turned out to be a nice Butt!!!!!   

Heartbreaking that it got away, but that's why they call it fishing not catching. 

Back at the beach started getting nervous about the raffle and speaking in front of so many people...but I could feel the love from the whole crowd and everything worked out great. 

At the end of the day my voice was gone, my arm was sore from pulling on fish, and we had at last count ~$10,500 raised for Joel!!!!

Our most profitable PIF so far!!!!!!   

THANK YOU once again to all who came out, donated prizes, bought tickets, or just shared words of encouragement and support.

Here's my little vid of the paddling shenanigans. 



 

Sincerely,

Jim

Just awesome!! Hang Loose mooch...Our thoughts are with you