The Trash Fish Classic was started by two good friends who loved to fish. Occasionally they would catch something, but most of their time was just spent trying. During the spring of 2002, after several successful weekends of catching trout, the two friends decided it was time to test their skills at one of the region's local tournaments. This is when the duo realized just how good they were. They had no problem catching catfish, ladyfish, pinfish, stingrays and sharks, but catching a legal size trout was out of the question. That day the catfish bite continued at about the same rate as their beer consumption, which in turn led to the repeated quote of the day: "If there was a tournament for trash fish we would definitely win". It was on this day the Trash Fish Classic was born.

For our first tournament we set our sights high. After talking with all of our friends it looked as if we were going to have 20 boats or more for the 1st Trash Fish Classic. Needless to say, we were excited. In reality this is not how it turned out. The first year we had a total of five boats that participated. After purchasing 100 koozies for the big event we barely had any money to pay the winner. Everything turned out okay though, with the winners taking home $80 and over 80 koozies to split amongst them.