Pound for pound, RRWT one of the best around

Lights, camera, action, and fish.
At the Rainy River Walleye Tournament last weekend, it was—and always is—about the show.
“The people up here just know how to put a big show,” said Marni Korpi of Roseau, Mn., who, along with partner Mike Vacura, finished in second place behind Oliver and Jason Gibbins of Morson.
“I put my vacation slip at work in January so that I can be here. We look forward to it all year long,” added Korpi, who won the RRWT with Vacura two years ago.
“This is just an awesome place for a tournament and everybody is just amazing, and it’s just so much fun,” she enthused.
Fishing tournaments in Northwestern Ontario aren’t just about fishing—they are much more than that. It’s about bringing a show to an audience that can spark the synapses and register intrigue, suspense, exuberance, drama, adrenaline, joy, and comedy.
And one of the main producers at this year’s show was emcee Lionel Robert, who is a key figure at fishing tournaments all across Northwestern Ontario.
“Fort, Rainy, and Emo. I mean, you guys down here, you’ve got the show,” said Robert, a resident of Winnipeg.
“I never get tired of doing it. I just love them to death,” he added. “Every tournament that I do is a different experience, and every one I do has its own uniqueness.
“And there’s just a lot of fun at each and every one of them.”
The Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship each July is what Ed Sullivan would refer to as “the really big shew.” But in their own right, the walleye tournaments Emo and Rainy River host in May and September, respectively, are just as big—and just as good.
“The organization here is similar to Fort. The town’s people, the spectators, the volunteers, the committee,” noted Robert. “I mean, the dedication is second to none.
“It’s very unfair to compare a bass tournament with a walleye tournament. You have to compare bass with bass, and walleye with walleye,” he stressed. “And the reason I say that is because they are two different fishing environments.
“I do a lot of walleye tournaments, and Rainy and Emo are the two best in the whole [U.S.] Midwest,” he remarked.
Like the little engine that could, the RRWT continues to gain steam every year and is starting to gain ground on the big boys. In fact, it could be regarded as—“pound for pound”—the best show in the northwest.
“The thing is, is that you got the people around here and they run this show like the big bass tournaments,” said Korpi, who has fished the RRWT for four of its six years.
“We’ve been in tournaments in Minnesota where they do nothing. They don’t have a tent, they don’t have any bands, they don’t do anything and it’s boring,” she added.
“Honestly, this is the best tournament that there is around this area,” echoed Vacura. “I’ve [gone] down south in Minnesota and places like that, and they don’t really put on much of a show. You just pay your money and then that’s it.”
When Robert started explaining how tournaments around this area came into being, he admitted he had no idea it would get to be like this.
“So I came and visited a bunch of Chambers [of Commerce] all over—Dryden, Red Lake, Fort Frances, Emo, Rainy River, and I don’t remember the other towns because there have been so many.
“But they were all interested, and places like Rainy, Emo, and Fort just took them by the horns and went with them.
“I didn’t think the walleye tournaments would get like this,” he added. “What they do here in Rainy and Emo doesn’t happen anywhere in mid-Canada.
“I’m just very happy and pleased that I came to the right towns.”