Check-in time a hectic affair at FFCBC

The culmination of each day at the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship is, of course, the weigh-in.
As each team presents its catch, the tension mounts as the weights go on the leader board, but much is done before the fish even reach the stage in the big tent.
Before each boat pulls into the dock at the Sorting Gap, it checks in with its catch and is issued a ticket on which is registered the time of check in, the number of the team, and the number of fish. All this takes place over at the dock in Sand Bay, where a team of volunteers keeps in touch by radio with other volunteers at the marina.
The action begins about 30 minutes before the deadline for the first flight. On Thursday, that time was 3:30 p.m.
And deadline is the right word.
Under the rules of the competition, any team that fails to check in on time has its catch for that day disqualified, as the team of Joe Prichett and Hiram Archibald (Team #26) discovered the hard way. The pair from Sioux Narrows checked in 1:37 past the deadline with a catch of over 16 pounds, but were unable to register it.
As each boat comes in, it must pass between two red marker buoys located just off the dock. The boat must be off the plane when it passes through, so some boats had to slow down in a hurry.
Within minutes of the arrival of the first two boats, shortly after 3 p.m., multiple rooster tails appeared on the horizon as the remainder of the first flight raced toward the dock to be checked in before the deadline.
The first boat to pass between the buoys on Thursday was Team 11—Rod Kitchingman and Allan McGregor from Winnipeg—followed closely by defending champions James and Bill Lindner. As they pulled up to the dock, one of the volunteers inspected the live well, verifying the number of fish and their state of health.
At the same time, another volunteer recorded the exact time of check-in and the number of fish. The teams are then given a docking slip before departing for the Sorting Gap and weigh-in.
As each team presented its catch to be weighed, it turned over the docking slip to another volunteer in the big tent, who also recorded the weight of the catch. In addition, the team was asked where in the lake the fish were caught. This information is important, because the tournament staff try to release the fish as close as possible to the location from which they came.
To facilitate that, the lake is divided into five segments. At the rules meeting on Wednesday, the anglers were given maps depicting the five areas and were asked to keep track of where the fish were caught.
After being weighed and recorded, the fish were taken backstage and placed in one of five holding tanks—each representing one of the five sections of the lake. At the completion of each day’s weigh-in, the fish were taken to the camera boat and returned to their part of the lake for release.
Tournament officials explained the reason they go to such lengths to release the fish as close as possible to home territory is because bass tend to be “homing pigeons.”—they will go to great lengths and great effort to return to their territory. This places them under considerable stress, which, combined with the stress of being caught and weighed, could prove fatal.
It is because of this degree of care and organization that the survival rate of bass caught in the FFCBC is reputed to be better than 99 percent.
Before they are released, some of the bass are tagged for future reference. This helps tournament and MNR officials to keep track of the fish and learn more about their longevity and rate of growth. On Friday, this effort paid off when one of the fish weighed in turned out to have been caught during the inaugural tournament back in 1995.
According to tournament emcee Lionel Robert, this particular fish had only grown three centimetres over the last nine years.
That is why the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship and the Ministry of Natural Resources work together to ensure a healthy fishery on Rainy Lake. With such a slow rate of growth, it takes many years for smallmouth bass to reach the size and weight of some that were brought in over the weekend. The largest fish this year weighed 5.26 pounds and was probably well over 20 years old.
Presumably, there are bigger and older fish in Rainy Lake, but thus far, anglers in the tournament have been unable to find them.
However, with the care the tournament officials take to ensure the survival of the fish, perhaps it is just a matter of time before some of them begin showing up at future weigh-ins.