Third annual HBAA great lakes fishing tournament a success
by Angie Asam, Staff Writer
The Hammond Bay Area Anglers (HBAA) sponsored a fishing tournament Saturday at the Rogers City Marina. Only seven boats competed in the tournament but the success was well received.
Captain Jim Schleben aboard Short Fuse along with crew members Eugene Krueger, Mark Karsten and Jodi Paull took first place with a total weight of 45.45 pounds. Each boat could weigh five fish, a combination of salmon, steelhead and/or trout. The largest fish the crew caught was a 18.95 pound brown trout, which incidentally was larger than the winner of the Alpena Brown Trout tournament.
Short Fuse also caught four chinook salmon with weights of 12.70, 4.50, 4.90 and 4.40 pounds. Those along with the large brown trout gave them first place and a prize of $1,750.
Northern Star with captain Richard Wooden and crew members Donald Wooden and Herman Kreit caught four fish for a total weight of 41.10 pounds for second place. Two nice chinook salmon weighing 12.10 and 18.80 pounds along with a 4.40 pound lake trout and 5.80 pound steelhead made up their total weight and gave them a prize of $525.
Captain Justin Vekaryasz and crew members Ben Basel, David Fryske and Tim Fairbanks came in third with 28.45 pounds of fish coming from two chinook salmon, a lake trout and a steelhead. Third place awarded them $350.
Other boats in the tournament were Direct Deposite (Captain Art Carson, Terry Kowalski, Gary Orr and Dan Schmidy), Part Time (Captain Troy Nowicki, Terry Flewelling, Ed Ciarkowski and Karl Zampich), Seahawk (Captain Roy Riley, Dale Winfield, Lenny Lremanek and Ken King) and Sandman (Captain Todd Curtis, Ken Hopp, Doug Claus and Tim Grossman).
?It would have been nice to have a few more boats but given the state of the economy and the slow start to the fishing season due to the weather we were pretty pleased with the tournament,? said tournament chairman Dave Smrchek.
Along with the big fishing tournament the anglers constructed a fishing pond in lakeside park in front of the bandshell and filled it with 100 fish, rainbow and brown trout, and gave kids under age 11 the opportunity to fish and awarded prizes to the top five fish in each category.
Fifty kids weighed in fish and more arrived after the 2 p.m. cutoff and were still allowed to fish. From 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. those participating in the kids fishing tournament could catch a fish, have it weighed, get their name on the leaderboard, get a picture taken with their catch, have the fish cleaned and then cooked at the Kiwanis Fish Shack. After the picture was printed they also made picture frames sponsored by 4-H of Presque Isle County to place their picture in and remember for the day. The youngest fisherman to weigh a fish in was 18 months old.
?The children?s activities were great, they were really worth it. We had a great turnout for the kids and they were all having a ball. They were really excited and glad to be there,? said Smrchek. Kids activities were sponsored and ran by United States Fisheries and Wildlife, SeaGrant, the National Marine Sanctuary, Huron Pines and 4-H. Children also had the opportun
Last year?s tournament held at the Hammond Bay Harbor also had seven boats. This year the association moved the tournament to Rogers City and cut the entry fee for each boat in half in hopes to get more involved, but with the economy and the bad weather it didn?t go as well as they had hoped. Smrchek feels pretty confident that the tournament will be back in the Rogers City harbor next summer and believes that the tournament has the potential to turn into a really big deal.
A pig roast followed the weigh-in but a rainstorm moved into the area and not many people braved the elements to be a part of the evening. According to Smrchek in the past many people attended the pig roast and hung out for the evening with nice weather, however, that is something no one can control.