Coastal Angler Magazine Interview with Joey Fontenot
The Tickfaw 200 Poker Run was started 24 years ago by a colorful character known as Crazy Charlie, a man with the notable accomplishment of a two-time world record speed crossing of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s Louisiana’s largest powerboat poker run and is now one of the most talked about and attended power boating events in the country. It brings speedy, million dollar boats from all over the United States.
Each team brings several people. It’s like NASCAR. There are people who come to ride in the boats and those who come to make sure the boats are performing well.
Joey Fontenot, Uncle Charlie’s nephew has continued the Poker Run since Charlie’s untimely death. It all starts and ends at the Blood River Landing on the Tchefuncte River. I caught Joey for an Coastal Angler Magazine interview at the Landing while most of his guests were out breaking the sound barrier in the swamps off Lake Pontchartrain, out there proving that people can still party at super-sonic speeds.
CAM: How’d the Tickfaw 200 get so big? Why are people from all over the country coming here?
Fontenot: Three things. One is climate change. Where do you go if you’re from Oklahoma and you’re in a drought? You go where the water is. With the major drought in Texas and the mid-West states, people who have these $200,000 boats now have little puddles to run around in. We have the water. Louisiana is blessed with water. Two. We got the scenery. Development has not happened on our rivers. We are the last frontier. You can’t build in a swamp. You go anywhere else on their rivers, it’s house after house after house. We’re the last native grounds in America. So they want to come and see this. Man, we have five or six boats come down out of New York. We got a guy who brought his boat all the way down from Michigan. You just don’t do that unless you wanna show what you got!
CAM: Was it small, low key, just locals for many years?
Fontenot: Just local many years. But now with the Internet, with Coastal Angler Magazine, and TV ads it has taken a local thing and blown it out. Media, not us, has played the biggest part to get the people here.
CAM: Was there a certain period where you saw it take off?
Fontenot: I wanna say about three years now, the peak has really come. Well the thing is…. to really grow we’ve gone out to the media, gone out to Coastal Angler Magazine, gone out to Facebook because without y’all, we wouldn’t have what we have.
CAM: Coastal Angler Magazine’s readers are anglers, so that makes them gamblers, but they still might not know how a Poker Run works.
Fontenot: $5,000 prize. Whoever has the best hand wins. The Poker Run is 200 miles long. You make five stops, you get your five cards. We got 290 people who’ve taken out a poker hand. Now what we do with that money, that’s $200 each per card, we cover expenses and then we give what we have left to to the Marine Division of Livingston Parish’s Sheriff’s Department….because our philosophy is that money made on the river should stay on the river.
CAM: It’s so quiet right now. Is this the calm before the storm? Is Blood River Landing the eye of the hurricane?
Fontenot: Yeah, tonight we’ll probably have about 3,000 people sitting here.
CAM: How does everybody and their boats manage to get around here for days?
Fontenot: They just do it they walk on boats. Boats are tied to boats are tied to boats, they swim, do whatever they got to do. [Sure enough, that night there were at least 3,000 people at the “Fun House” with at least 40 Motor homes and more Cigarettes rafted together than you would believe.]
CAM: Must be a long weekend for you. People start leaving here Sunday?
Fontenot: Sunday morning they got to leave.
CAM: Some people would probably like to stay….for a couple months.
Fontenot: Ah, look, we done had enough! They start getting here Wednesday, party Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, going through three bands, $9,000 in beer, $6,000 in hard liquor, man it’s unbelievable.
CAM: With the Tickfaw 200 and the New Orleans Jazz Fest going on at the same time, Mardi Gras might be getting a run for it’s money… But I didn’t see any costumes.
Fontenot: Bikinis are the costumes around here. [Laughter.]
CAM: Well, I’m coming again next year….even if I have to come in a rowboat.
Fontenot: Yeah buddy!
[easy-social-share]