Cody Morgan and Brant Langley hold up their winning fish in last year’s Wolfson’s Children Hospital Bass Tournament at Palatka Riverfront. (Daily News file photo)

By the end of this week, the quiet along the St. Johns River will be gone.

The 37th Wolfson Children’s Hospital Bass Tournament will be taking place in two days with the big event happening Saturday.

“We’re packing trailers and everybody’s getting ready to roll that way in a few days,” said Sam Dean, the assistant director of plant facilities for Baptist Health. A member of the staff at the hospital since 1987, Dean has been a part of every tournament, starting in 1989.

“Consistently, we have been putting between 350-400 boats in the water on Saturday,” Dean said. “It’s been a three-day tournament, and normally, we’d have 120 boats on Thursday and Friday. But what we’ve decided to do this year is combine the Thursday and Friday events into one day (on Friday). Even though there are two tournaments, they’ll run parallel. What we’re trying to do is reduce the cost of the tournament so we can generate more money for the children’s programs. That’s really the goal – to raise money for the cardiology program at Wolfson. We started an endowment years back and we’ve now reached $7 million in that endowment. It’s spinning off $200,000-300,000 a year that benefits the children.”

This year, both the Lads and Lasses and VIP/Friends of Wolfson Children’s will take place on Friday, while the big tournament remains on Saturday. It costs $120 to enter the Friday competitions and $140 for the Saturday biggie.

“We think we’re going to get about 120 boats or so,” Dean said for Friday’s events.

If anything can keep numbers down for the tournament, Dean said it is the recent surge in gas prices caused by the U.S. invasion on Iran, doubling the costs.

“The poor guys that have to fill up their boats on the water, I think they’re paying almost $6 a gallon,” Dean said. “We’ll know better once we see where the total turnout is, but right now, we’re running pretty close to what we’ve been seeing at this point. There are a lot of folks who show up the day of the tournament. Let’s also see what the weather is doing.”

Saturday’s forecast currently has temperatures hovering near 90 degrees and sunny skies.

“It’s the big one,” said top area angler Lee Stalvey, who will fish with his son, Parker, in Saturday’s big event, and fish alongside his mother, Sarah, during Lads and Lasses tournament on Friday. “It has been the big one for as long as I can remember.”

Stalvey started competing in the event in 1997. Three years later, he won his first Wolfson’s tournament, then won his second title in 2008. And in 2024, his son won the championship with Syler Prince, the son of longtime pro bass angler Cliff Prince. Stalvey said his son will compete in the VIP championship with friend Jacob Deel.

As far as what he can expect, Lee Stalvey said there’s always going to be uncertainty once the event begins. “It all depends on the weather and what stage the fish are in,” he said. “Seems like every year it’s different. Shad spawn is going off right now in Crescent Lake, so there’s a great chance that it’ll be won out of there.”

Dean said the biggest excitement for him every year is when weigh-ins begin along the Palatka docks at 3 p.m.

“You can hear the crowd when there’s a big fish coming in. Everyone’s excited,” said Dean, who emphasized that payments for top total catch creel pays down to 40th place, a far cry from the top four when the tournament started in 1989. “The fishermen know each other, so there’s a lot of competition and a lot of back and forth. It’s just a lot of fun.”

More than $40,000 in cash prizes will be awarded in this year’s big tournament. The hospital also said that for a suggested $20 donation, anyone can enter a drawing for a new Bullet Boat with a trailer courtesy of Bullet Boats and Mercury. Proceeds for the drawing will go toward the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Heart Institute at Wolfson’s. For more on the boat or to enter, you can do so at WCHBassTournament@bmcjax.com.

  • While the Wolfson Children’s event will be dominating the fishing scene this weekend, competition continued in the Corky Bell’s Thursday evening bass tournament on the St. Johns River.

Ten boats weighed in catches with seven collecting full limits this past Thursday, and it was the father-son team of Lee and Parker Stalvey taking both the overall and big bass honors, hauling in 26.60 overall pounds, including an 8.24-pound bass. The pair overwhelmed the competition, winning by a substantial margin over second-place finisher Cooper Hoare, who brought in 15.14 pounds. Rounding out the top five were Wyatt Kinney and Austin Black (14.23 pounds), Austin Peters and Syler Prince (13.60) and Cody Mullis and Jace Akers (13.09).

On April 30, the Stalvey pairing was most successful as well with 33.60 pounds overall and the big bass of 8.11 pounds. Cody Morgan and Brant Langley were a distant second at 23.40, and well behind them in spots three through five were Brett Bollinger and Justin Atkinson (14.76), Andy Reagor and R.T. Harrington (14.33) and Matt Kinney and Mark Blevins (13.83).

And, yes, with all the hustle and bustle going on with the Wolfson Children’s tournament, the Corky Bell’s tournament will still be a go this Thursday night. It is a weekly event with $50 entry and a $500 first prize going to the winner. Weigh-ins take place as the darkness sets in on the docks of Corky Bell’s. For more information, you can get either Blevins at (386) 937-2006 or Becky Williams at (352) 213-4200.

Mark Blumenthal is sports editor at the Palatka Daily News. You can reach him at mblumenthal@palatkadailynews.com or on Bluesky @markybee1966.bsky.social. Fish Bites appear every other Wednesday in the Daily News.