At this year’s Powder Puff Tournament, held on Saturday June 18, not everyone walked home with a trophy, but many were able to walk onto the docks with a story to tell. The main mentality was, “what happens on the water stays on the water.”

It was the first time Leah Matthews and Whitney Williams, Port Aransas High School graduates of 2007, wade fished.

“We were sinking in the mud up to our knees and falling in oysters, but it was fun,” Matthews said.

Sandra Rogers of San Antonio and her team, Bahama Mamas, had been competing in the tournament for 12 – 13 years, and it was the first time they weren’t weighing in during the last five minutes, Rogers said.

“We caught so many reds we broke fishing poles. Our team is all husbands and wives, and they were ready to get us off the boat,” Rogers of San Antonio said.

The ladies were smiling as they brought their fish off the boat.

Rogers’ teammate, Darlene Baerwald, of St. Hedwig said, “If we’d ever do it again? Most definitely!”

There were countless hats lost to the wind and a lot of snapped lines, but there weren’t many glum faces at this year’s tournament.

“I got stung by a jelly fish, we scraped our boat on a rock and got our hair blown away,” Nita Mc- Carty of Garden Ridge said with a large smile on her face.

Even Sharon Gilmore of Port Aransas was in good spirits after seeing a traumatic incident before her fishing trip had begun.

A young boy had a seizure at Deep Sea Headquarters around 6 a.m. before they began their trip, Gilmore said.

“His father had jumped in after him and saved the boy,” she said.

Kara Andel of Port Aransas waited with her team on a flat for three hours waiting for her husband to bring oil for their boat.

“ We broke down at about 9 in the morning, we sat on a flat for three hours. It was a long day,” Andel of Port Aransas said.