We are all winners!

This was the toughest decision we've had to make in a long, long time. I'm talking about picking a winner in the Crappie.com/Good Deed "Story" contest. Some of the stories brought laughter and some brought tears. They were awesome, and it made me feel like Crappie.com members truly have made positive impacts on many peoples lives.

I want to thank each and every one of you that submitted a story. I consider you all winners. And as such, I will be sending each of you that submitted an actual entry a little prize. More about that later.

Now for the winner of the “Eight Driftmaster Crappie Stalkers”.

Drum roll please. The winner is:

Prowler

with this Story:

I have a little story i would like to share;

When you were a kid, time just crawled along. Things for me never seemed to happen fast enough. You always seemed to be waiting for you birthday so you could be old enough to do this or that.

Now that i am not quite a kid anymore, It seems like the exact opposite is true. Special things happen and you wish you could keep those times going on forever.

Yet time just keeps marching on.

About 5 years ago my wife and I lived in Maryland. We had a nice little house, in a nice little neighborhood with all the normal things that accompany that. Our kids were pretty much out of the house (oldest son joined Air Force, Daughter was senior in high school) I had just purchased my first new boat, we were starting to plan cruises and plenty of vacations, when we received a phone call.

That phone call was from the Department of Social Service's and was to inform us that a distant relative of my wife's family had abandoned her baby at the hospital at birth. We learned during that phone call that although the child had been drug exposed he was 100% healthy. We were asked if we would consider becoming foster parents because as "family members even very distant ones" we were considered to be in the childs best interest. The caller ended the phone call by saying they would call us back in 2 days to find out if we would take this child in.

After a few minutes of soul searching on our part, my wife and I called back right away and advised DSS to bring that child home. They showed up promptly the next afternoon with my future fishing buddy wrapped up in blankets.



So fast forward a couple years, spending summers in the pool trying to teach Anthony how to swim, before he was even 3 he was able to swim from one side of the pool to the other without life vest. That's when i new it was time take my buddy fishing for the first time. We went out to a couple of freshwater "ponds" that through a system of slews are connected to the Chesapeake. I had previously caught rockfish, bluegill, and bass in those ponds. We anchored up in a little spot with some brush and threw out a worm under a bobber on my buddy's new mickey mouse rod. First bite, I help him set the hook and he start's reeling in the catch.

We get it in the boat and to my shock and amazement my little buddy's first fish ever is a Crappie. The fish was maybe 5-6 inches long but it was bigger than the biggest 3 lb'er i have ever seen in my book.

Here are some pic's mom took of the action.







We completed adoption proceeding's with Anthony just a few day's after these pictures.

Fast forward a couple more years after these picture's and we find out that Anthony's Birth mother has had another child that was left at the hospital, I don't think i need to tell the story again, you guys get the picture by now

Shortly after we finished the adoption for her, we needed to head back home to my old stomping grounds in Louisiana. My parents are getting old and mom suffers from Alzheimer's. Wanted to be there for them as they get older.

She's just 2 now but she loves it when daddy takes her out on the boat, and loves to pet the fishes when daddy catches them. We were out on Toledo Bend just the other day, and she was trying to hold the rod and reel with a fish on but has not quite yet got the hang of it. I plan on having pictures of her first fish pretty soon.

Say hello to little Miranda



I plan on having pictures of her first fish pretty soon. With any luck that will be a Sac-a-lait as well!


And the Runners Up are, in no particular order:

1. RetiredRR
2. Kdavid1
3. Billbob
4. Paddlefoot70
5. Big Jay
6. inlovewithsurfin
7. CrappieHappy
8. Tim The Lippa Rippa Mon
9. Magnum500
10. nathansmithusa
11. LMBarnett
12. Inkdabber
13. Eeker01
14. Pete
15. sls
16. Mrs. Crappie Stalker
17. South65
18. Lowe170w
19. Bricks
20. RCC
21. Nimrod
22. Crappiehogman
23. SlabMagnet
24. Kee_Yang
25. Eagle 1
26. LureheadEd
27. inkminners
28. Crappie4me2
29. Blackhawk19

For all these "Runners Up's", I would like to mail each of you a free Crappie.com T-shirt. Because there are 29 of you I'd like to ask if you can help with shipping. If you buy anything at the CrappieWear.com store, I will include your free T-Shirt with that order. I want to emphasize, you do not have to buy anything. You can just PM me your shirt size and mailing address and I'll be happy to send it to you. I just thought I'd ask, and heck, maybe you wanted a little something from the store anyway. This way we could kill two birds with one stone, and I could save a little on shipping.

If you do choose to order something from the CrappieWear.com store, please PM me the name you placed the order in (and your shirt size) so I can put two and two together to get the shirt to the right person.

Thank you everyone. I thought this was one of the best contests we've had here. I'll be publishing many of the stories submitted here on the home page over time. I think everyone should read some of these stories. If you want to read them all ahead of time, here's a link to the original contest:
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/conte...ml#post2293660