Month: June 2019

Father’s Day Weekend on Useppa – Thoughts and photographs by UseppaGin – A mixture of ages, grandparents and grandchildren, fathers and their children, mothers making it happen…There is no better way to celebrate Father’s Day than to be on Useppa. The love, the joy, the happiness on the dock, at the Collier Inn, the pool, playing chess, everywhere on the island was a celebration of family.

Employee BBQ – Thoughts by Dakota Likewise and photos by UseppaGin – June has arrived and as the weekdays slow, a tradition Useppa Island Club on the first Monday of Collier Inn seasonal closure puts on our End of Season Employee BBQ! For 20+ years, on this day, all Island staff gather around for cheeseburgers in paradise off the BBQ manned by one of the caring leaders of our Club, it’s a great time where Landscaping hangs out with Captains, Accountants with Housekeepers, Island Executives with Painters and everyone gets the chance to just enjoy each other for at least an hour over a good meal. It’s keeping up with the traditions and showing appreciation to our hard working staff that keep us strong, Thank You to all the Staff of Useppa Island Club once again!

Jason Duke and Ben Levene with Captain Ozzie Lessinger Win Useppa’s 2019 Izaak Walton Tarpon Tournament – Thoughts and Photos by UseppaGin – It was a hard fought victory. Twenty-four Silver King were caught on Friday and six more on Saturday. Fifteen teams competed for the right to add their names to those on a silver trophy over 110 years old. Finally, it was the team with six fish who won the Championship. Captain Ozzie Lessinger and anglers Jason Duke and Ben Levene were the victors in this year’s Useppa Izaak Walton Tarpon Tournament. Dan Stickley and Justin Dewitt fishing with Captain Mike Slattery came in second with five Tarpon, and the father and son team of Richard and Bruce Wendorf with Captain Ryan Klase finished third with four. Two days on the water, cocktails and food at the Island’s Tarpon Bar, fishermen, their families, a hard working staff… the tradition of Useppa Tarpon fishing is still an integral and vibrant part of island life. (Thank you to Ben Levene, Donald Beckstead and Rich Morris for their pictures. Thank you to Andee Grosnick Wilson for registration help and score keeping, and a thank you to Rogan White for taking me out on the water to shoot pictures.)

The 2019 Useppa Tarpon Tournament Part I – Words and Pictures by UseppaGin – Twenty-four Silver Kings were caught on the first day in the 2019 Useppa Izaak Walton Club Tarpon Tournament. One team caught five, and two teams each caught four. It was a day on the water to celebrate an Island tradition that goes back over 100 years. When it began in the early 1900s, men and women fished dressed formally in jackets and starched shirts. Now men and women wear comfortable clothes, smear themselves with sunscreen, and have broad brimmed hats to keep off the sun. Some things don’t change. Today’s Silver Kings are as wily as their ancestors in the past. It still takes a good fishermen, a smart captain, and some old fashioned luck to reel one in. Thanks to Patrick Leach and Taylor Hay for their close up pictures of anglers and Tarpon.