There are fishing buddies and there are fishing buddies.

Steve Gambill must have been one of the special ones.

He had to be to have somebody go to all the trouble of putting on a memorial fishing tournament in his honor.

But for Chris Vitovich, the effort of organizing the Steve Gambill Cancer Classic bass fishing tournament last Sunday seemed more like a calling. Just days before Gambill succumbed to lung cancer on Jan. 7, 2001, Vitovich visited him at home and promised that he would put on some kind of angling venture to memorialize his best friend.

So, bad back and all, Vitovich went at the task of securing sponsors, finding a location, advertising for anglers and knocking on doors for donated raffle prizes.

"I had no idea how much work this was going to be," Vitovich said after the first Gambill Classic, staged at West Landing Marina in Virginia Beach.

"I learned so much from doing this one, enough that I'll be way ahead of the game when it's time to do the next one. We're going to do this every year to help keep Steve with us for another year."

Vitovich has dedicated himself to raising money to fight cancer on behalf of Gambill, who was in his mid40s when he died.

"We knew each other for about 16 years," Vitovich said, still emotional when he talks about Gambill. "We were shipyard workers, and we'd go fishing when we had the chance."

Now when Vitovich has the chance to go fishing, which isn't often because of a back that requires a support brace, he often looks toward the sky for guidance.

"He was helping me with this thing, I know he was." Vitovich said. "Because of him and so many people who helped, I was able to pull this off."

"We had hamburgers and hot dogs that Boy Scout Troop 57 of Chesapeake cooked, and we had a donation jar," Vitovich said. "We had coffee and doughnuts before everybody went out.

"If people didn't have any money to donate, they were still welcomed to help themselves to something to eat. I wasn't going to have anybody go hungry."

 Vitovich didn't just feed the anglers. He also drummed up a couple of new rod-and-reel combos, another fishing rod, a tackle box and a $25 gift certificate to a tackle shop to use as raffle prizes.

"We ended up with 10 sponsors, and that ain't bad for a first event," Vitovich said as his wife Donna handed out the prizes.

When it was all said and done, Vitovich hobbled to a nearby lounger and rested his ailing back. Then one of Gambill's brothers got up to thank everyone for the effort. Vitovich somehow found the strength to pull himself to his feet to listen.

It was pretty obvious that, while his old friend is no longer around in body, he's still very much there in heart and mind.

That's what makes good fishing buddies so very special.

Gambill must have been one of those guys. His buddy sure is.

Written by Lee Tolliver, sports writer for the Virginia Pilot Outdoors Report.
Reach Lee Tolliver at 222-5844 or at ltollive@pilotonline.com