Throwback to Before You Knew Better Photo Contest

Remember those days? You know which ones we’re talking about, those rotten salad days before you knew better. Those days you look back on with horror when you see your teenage angst-ridden fish porn, and you can’t figure out if the fish died from your Vulcan death grip or the glare of your neon Reebok tracksuit. Hey, at least you had the pumps to match!

Here at the Chum we miss the days when anglers were convinced their mullet, perm, or permed out mullet made them look rad. We pine for those times when fish bras didn’t exist, so some stupid competition called “Slab of the Month” was people’s preferred internet fish porn. One thing we don’t miss, those way back when times before you could put your shirtless fish pics on your Tinder profile – what a waste of a trip to Walgreens…

The Chum wants to honor the inglorious days of old when we acted like fish could breathe air, when Tom Rosenbauer was fly fishing’s young rebel, and when tenkara was awesome (hold on, we’re still waiting on that last one) with a photo contest that celebrates your most unfortunate fishing photos of yesteryear.

Got a fish photo where your ponytail is longer than the short shorts you’re rocking, we want to see it! Have a pic where the pimples on your face outnumber the inches of the dead fish you’re posing with, send it our way! Got pictures of you rocking a fishing shirt so hideous that a Portland hipster wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it, pass that bad boy along!

Here are the rules of the road for this far from epic photo contest.

1. The photo must be of you.
2. We fully expect to see pics of lipped trout and fish on rocks (aka before you knew better), so all photos must predate the inception of #keepemwet, which was January 1, 2013.
3. Include a caption explaining the before you knew betterness nature of each photo and an approximate date of the catastrophe. Obviously, the funnier the better.
4. You must be cool with us sharing your embarrassing photos far and wide on the internet, social media, and maybe even David Lantz’s Bumble profile.

That’s it. Just submit your photo(s) to oyvey@moldychum.com before May 10 to enter the contest. A select panel of not so distinguished judges will narrow it down to their favorite pics, and then you, the now that you know better Chum nation, will get to vote on the winners.

But wait there’s more! You can actually win rad stuff by sharing your not so rad photos…

1st Place aka The King/Queen of Unfortunateness Award: The hero of horribleness will receive a custom built Sage LE, the self-proclaimed and definitive “before Sage knew better rod”. Sage risked triggering some serious PTSD for their rod makers to make this custom rod (pictured above) for the winner of this absurd photo contest. In addition to this unpolished, yet priceless treasure, the winner will also win a Sage X rod of their choice – a rod Sage made when they knew wayyyy better.

2nd Place aka The “if you’re not first, you’re last” Award: This first place loser will receive a SPECTRUM LT reel from the fine folks at Sage.

3rd Place aka The Lowest Rung on the Olympic Medal Platform Award: This glad to be included here winner will receive the most unfortunate fishing clothing item we can find from the depths of the dark web.