Wild Carp Week 2011 Media Coverage

Monday, May 16

By David Figura
The Post-Standard The Post-Standard

Wild Carp Week is upon us.

The kickoff event is set for Saturday at Paper Mill Island in Baldwinsville and includes a salt potato eating contest from 2 to 3:30 p.m. featuring Joey Chestnut, the world hotdog eating champion.

Saturday’s schedule, which stretches from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., also includes a casting competition, a magician and bounce house for the kids, and live music provided by SOS (the Soul of Syracuse) from 6 to 9 p.m.

The Wild Carp Classic fishing tournament is set to begin at 9 a.m. Sunday and will continue for 50 straight hours, finishing up at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 36 two-person teams registered. Tournament directors Jason Bernhardt and Sean Sauda, of Wild Carp Companies, were expecting at least 50 and the prize money offered will be changed as a result.

With 50 teams, the winning team, for example, would have gotten $10,000. With 36 teams, the winning team will get a little more than $7,000, according to the tournament’s Web site.

Bernhardt said the flood waters on the Seneca River, where the competition will be held, resulted in some lost fishing (peg) locations.

“The water was so high, we had to turn at least three teams away ... and I’m sure word spread,” he said.

This is the first year that the locally run Wild Carp Companies is conducting the tournament.

During the past four years, the carp fishing competition, which featured international and national anglers, was run by the Oklahoma-based CARP Tournament Series. The carp fishing group has turned its attention this year to running the World Carp Fishing Championships scheduled for this fall on the St. Lawrence River.

In addition to the Wild Carp Classic, Bernhardt and Sauda are holding three additional, one-day, cash-paying tournaments during the week — along with a celebrity carp fishing competition on May 21, with the winnings being donated by participants to local charities.