Fish for a Cure: Anchor Cross Cancer Foundation Bass Tournament Set for Live Oak Landing

Anglers across the Gulf Coast will have a chance to fish for a cause later this month when the Anchor Cross Cancer Foundation holds its fourth annual bass fishing tournament at Live Oak Landing near Stockton. The event, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 13, gets under way at 6:30 a.m. with a catch-and-release format, and cash prizes await the top five anglers at the weigh-in. Organizers are inviting teams from across Baldwin County and the surrounding region to take part, with every dollar raised going toward the foundation’s mission of advancing local cancer research, community education, and patient assistance across the Gulf Coast.

The tournament is the brainchild of a partnership between two women who have seen the impact of cancer in the community from different angles. Mary Kathryn McMillon of Southern Cancer Center and foundation director Joan Kellis are spearheading the effort, recruiting teams, lining up sponsors, and coordinating the morning launch and afternoon weigh-in. For both, the event blends two things that run deep in south Alabama culture: a love of fishing the Delta and a commitment to supporting neighbors through cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Live Oak Landing sits on the lower Tensaw Delta in Baldwin County, just north of Stockton, and gives tournament competitors access to some of the finest bass water in the region. The landing provides boat launch facilities, parking for trucks and trailers, and room for the weigh-in crowd that gathers as teams return with their catch. From the ramp, anglers can work the network of sloughs, oxbows, and backwater lakes that make the Delta one of Alabama’s most productive fisheries, where largemouth bass thrive among cypress and tupelo trunks, lily pad fields, and tidal grass flats.

Fishing the lower Delta in October

Mid-October is a favorite time for Delta anglers. The brutal heat of the summer has eased, water temperatures are falling, and bass begin feeding more aggressively as they move toward shallow cover in the mornings and late afternoons. Fall on the Tensaw Delta brings changing conditions with the tides, and anglers often find fish keyed on bait pushed against grass lines and cypress points. Popular approaches include slow-rolling spinnerbaits around wood, working soft plastics along drop-offs near slough mouths, and covering water with topwater lures during low-light hours.

A catch-and-release format fits both the fishery and the fundraiser. Teams bring their heaviest fish to the scales, and tournament staff release them alive back into the Delta after weigh-in, preserving the resource that makes the venue special. Catch-and-release tournaments have become standard practice across the region precisely because the Delta’s bass fishery is a shared asset, one that supports local fishing guides, bait shops, and marinas along with the community tournaments held there throughout the year.

The Anchor Cross Cancer Foundation’s mission

The Anchor Cross Cancer Foundation raises money for three connected purposes. The first is local cancer research, funding work conducted in the Gulf Coast region rather than sending all donations to distant institutions. The second is community education, spreading awareness about screening, early detection, and prevention, work that health advocates credit with saving lives when cancers are caught at more treatable stages. The third is patient assistance, providing direct help to local families dealing with the financial strain that accompanies a cancer diagnosis, from travel costs for treatment to everyday expenses that pile up while a breadwinner is undergoing therapy.

That combination of research, education, and hands-on help is what sets community foundations like Anchor Cross apart from larger national charities. Organizers stress that money raised in Baldwin County and Mobile stays in the local area, benefiting patients who are treated at regional oncology practices, including Southern Cancer Center, which has served the Gulf Coast with offices across the two-county area for years. For families facing treatment schedules that can mean daily trips for radiation or weeks of chemotherapy, a local safety net makes a measurable difference.

Why fishing tournaments work as fundraisers on the Gulf Coast

Bass tournaments have long been a fundraising staple in south Alabama for the same reason they are popular as competitions: the barrier to entry is low, the camaraderie is high, and the setting is hard to beat. Teams of friends, coworkers, church members, and business partners sign up months in advance, and local companies support the cause through sponsorships, prize donations, and entry-fee underwriting. A tournament day at a Delta landing brings together people who might never cross paths otherwise, from professional anglers to weekend fishermen, all rallied around a shared cause.

The fourth annual edition signals that the event has found its footing. Recurring charity tournaments build momentum as word of mouth spreads, past participants return with new teammates, and the fundraising total grows year over year. Organizers with the Anchor Cross Cancer Foundation have made the tournament their signature fall event, timed for when the weather cools and the fishing picks up, and the Stockton venue puts the event within easy driving distance of Bay Minette, Spanish Fort, Daphne, Fairhope, and communities across the eastern shore.

How the day unfolds

Tournament mornings at Live Oak Landing start early. Teams check in before daylight, stage their boats on the water, and wait for the official launch at 6:30 a.m. From there, anglers fan out across the Delta, some running far up the Tensaw or the Spanish River, others working the water close to the landing. The weigh-in brings everyone back together in the afternoon, when the top five finishers collect cash prizes and the fish are released. The gathering also gives organizers a stage to talk about the foundation’s work, thank sponsors, and remind the crowd what the entry fees and donations support.

Community members who do not fish can still take part, as most charity tournaments welcome spectators at the weigh-in and accept donations from those who simply want to support the mission. Local businesses often contribute gift certificates, tackle, or services that add to the prize pool, and volunteers handle everything from registration tables to fish care during the weigh-in, making an event like this a genuine community production rather than a single-organization effort.

What the Delta means to Baldwin County

The lower Delta is one of Baldwin County’s defining landscapes, a vast wetland of bottomland hardwoods and open marsh where the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers merge to form the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, one of the largest river deltas and wetland ecosystems in the Southeast. Stockton, the small community nearest the landing, sits at the head of the Delta on U.S. 31, a quiet crossroads with deep roots in the county’s timber and river history. Hosting the tournament there ties the fundraiser to a place that generations of local anglers have considered home water.

As the fourth annual tournament approaches, organizers are encouraging teams to register early and spread the word. For the anglers, the day offers a shot at cash prizes on one of the region’s best bass fisheries. For the foundation, each entry and sponsorship adds to the total that will fund research, education, and patient assistance across the Gulf Coast, one cast at a time.

Cancer care close to home

The tournament’s beneficiary relationship with the region’s cancer community reflects how care is delivered along the Gulf Coast. Patients in Baldwin and Mobile counties are treated at a network of oncology clinics, infusion centers, and hospital-based programs, and organizations like Southern Cancer Center have built their practice around keeping care local so that patients do not have to drive hours to Pensacola or Birmingham for treatment. Fundraisers like the Anchor Cross tournament reinforce that local system, supporting the research and assistance programs that operate where patients actually live.

Community education is the quieter part of the mission but a crucial one. Health advocates emphasize that screening rates for colon, breast, cervical, and lung cancers vary widely across the region, and that early detection is often the difference between a straightforward treatment course and an advanced diagnosis. Local foundations fund outreach in churches, workplaces, and community centers, spreading the word about recommended screenings and helping connect residents to low-cost or subsidized screening options when cost is a barrier.

The tournament’s place in the fall calendar

October is a busy month for outdoor fundraisers across south Alabama, when the weather finally cools enough for 5Ks, fishing rodeos, and golf tournaments to fill the calendar. The Anchor Cross bass tournament has carved out its niche in that landscape by pairing a serious competition format with a cause that touches nearly every family in the region. Most residents of the Gulf Coast have a relative, friend, coworker, or neighbor who has faced cancer, and that shared experience is what fills the field at a fundraiser like this one.

For teams considering entering, the arithmetic is simple: an entry fee buys a morning on the Delta, a chance at a cash prize, and the knowledge that the money is going to work locally. For the foundation, each angler represents not just a fee but an ambassador who carries the story of the event back to work, to church, and to the tackle shop, recruiting the field for the fifth annual tournament before the fourth is even over.

Keeping the fishery healthy

The catch-and-release format also protects the resource that makes the event possible. The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is managed by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and its bass population supports recreational fishing that generates significant economic activity across Baldwin and Mobile counties, from fuel and tackle purchases to guide trips and lodging. Tournaments that handle fish carefully, weigh them promptly, and return them to the water alive help ensure that the fishery remains strong for the next event and the next generation of anglers.

As weigh-in time approaches at Live Oak Landing on tournament day, the parking lot fills with families, sponsors, and curious passersby drawn by the crowd. The largest bags of fish draw applause, the top five anglers collect their prize checks, and the foundation’s directors close out another year of turning the Gulf Coast’s love of fishing into funding for the fight against cancer, right where that fight is being waged every day in clinics and households across the region.