Well I heard about the 7th Annual Live Release Fall Classic Walleye Derby hosted by one of our neighbors and dad's buddy Les Corbay from my father when I was up north this summer asking if we should join .. Having missed it last year, I was definately in. My friend Evelyn from work was going to be visiting Southern Ontario having never been this far south in Ontario. Plans formulated and months later the Derby weekend was already upon us with us 3 entering in our boat.
We headed out for the launch early at 5am knowing there was no docks at shermans so launching would be tough with 85 people participating in the annual derby. We had our livewells checked and were on the water by 6am fishing in the dark. We had a bit of visiblity by 6:30am.
Slowly but surely the sun started to peep out of the horizon.
6 hours later ... 12:30pm and no fish in the boat
The Derby was scheduled to end at 1:30 and with the rough waves, tough winds and no hope left we figured we'd call it a day and try to get the boat outta the water in one piece. While Evelyn was reeling in the first rod my dad and I were packing up the boat. I looked up and noticed the right planer board going back. FISH ONNNNN!!!!! I grabbed the rod and handed it to Evelyn. Hooting and hollering I looked over at the other rod for a quick glimps and saw it chugging back .. FISHHHH ONNNN!!! Double Headerr!!!! Grabbed the rod and passed it over to my dad as he handed me the net. My dads fish was the first to get to the boat, with a scoop of the net the first fish of the day was in the boat a nice 5 lber.
I wasn't able to take a picture of my dad with his fish since we were trying to get the next fish in.. the plastic bag was wrapped on the pliers while trying to unhook the fish oops
Evelyn's fish seemed significantly larger and faught quite a bit.
It finally surfaced boat side and with a scoop of the net .. Evelyn's first quinte eye was ours.. a nice 10 lb PB quinte hawg.
With time running out we headed to the launch where Les made our lives alot easier and got our trailer for us to load our boat.
Boat out of the water, we headed to the weigh station. My dads fish weighed in at 5.26 lbs and Evelyn's fish weighing in at 10.35lbs. We were greeted by Superdad and found out Laker John caught a monster 13 lber and by far the leader on the board. The officials released the 5 pounder before I could get a picture of it with my dad.
Evelyn and I with the 10 lber before the release.
When the rankings were complete Evelyn took home 3rd place and my dad took home 7th. We'll take it
We saw good ol Fatman, Grateful Fisher and crew who had won second place in the derby. Way to go guys. see ya'll soon!
Thank you Les for organizing a great derby for such a great cause.
A long morning spent lure washing but quite the last minute battles!
Until next time ....
Aadil