A Special Federation Moment at the 2011 Bassmaster Classic Brandon Palaniuk

[djkimmel]

This was one of the many moments that made the 2011 Bassmaster Classic extra special - BASS Federation Nation champion Brandon Palaniuk's tribute to previous federation classic champ Bryan Kerchal on the final day, February 20, 2011:

[djkimmel]

I was at the Bassmaster Classic when a super, super nice and humble Bryan Kerchal became the first and only federation qualifier to win the super bowl of bass fishing. Surprising to me, I even made the TV show I found out many months later when a lady up north told me I was on it (for all of 1 second sitting in the stands after yelling myself hoarse).

Kind of like cameraguy is now in forever in the 2011 Bassmaster Classic show sitting in the boat with GreatLakesBass.com member Ryan Said.

If you don't know the Bryan Kerchal story, here's some great information from a fishing legend Rich Zaleski:
http://www.richz.com/bryan/bryan.html

It seems like a fitting day for this type of story when we all should not need anymore reminders that we should all be nice to each more often since we are all each other has.

[cameraguy]

Thanks for posting the link to Rich Z's article. Good stuff.

[djkimmel]

You're welcome.

Though I wasn't a hang-out friend of Bryan's, I did get to know enough him to know he was a super, super nice kid. Big loss to the fishing world.