What a party!

There were games, dinners, dancing, raffles, and, oh yes, fish. Lots of fish.
The second-annual Emo Walleye Classic was an even bigger success than last year’s inaugural edition and according to its board of directors, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
“We’re very pleased,” said director Colleen Vennechenko, who was still abuzz from the weekend.
“It definitely exceeded expectations, and, hopefully, we’ll have a full field [60 teams] next year. And we intend to see if there’s any government money available to build a second ramp to accommodate more teams,” she added.
There were 56 teams in this year’s event, with two cancellations, leaving a field of 54.
Director Ed Carlson echoed Vennechenko’s enthusiasm and optimism. When asked how he rated this year’s event, he gave it an unequivocal 10 out of 10.
“I don’t see how we could do it much better,” Carlson enthused. “The business support here in Emo was so terrific. The volunteer spirit is alive and well.”
Carlson noted the money raised by the various ventures and raffles during the derby does not stay in the committee’s hands but is reinvested in the community.
“Funds go into kids’ play fields and sometimes to communities around us,” he explained. “The committee does not keep the money.”
Carlson said he also liked the idea of investing some of the profits in another boat ramp in order to handle more boats next year. Since all the entry fees go into the prize pot, the more entries there are, the bigger the take for the winners.
“If we had another boat launch, we could accommodate more teams,” he said.
“The hardest part for me [as angler liaison and traffic cop] is getting those guys out of the water and up to the arena in a fashion where you don’t wind up with large gaps as you bring in the fish,” he stressed.
“That’s something we’re definitely going to look at.”
The matter of getting the fish quickly and safely from the boats’ live-wells to the holding tanks at the arena was accomplished with perfection—thanks again to the team of volunteers and a well co-ordinated life-support system.
A total of 286 fish (with a total weight of 385 pounds) were weighed in for the competition—up from 156 fish last year. But unlike last year, all of the fish were released alive afterwards.
Things didn’t go completely smoothly for all the anglers, however. The team of Jim Strachan and Stan Anderson was disqualified for Friday’s catch because they were late getting back to the dock.
That, said Carlson, was not so much the fault of the team but the result of not enough resources to deal with such contingencies.
“They didn’t do anything wrong,” he noted. “They hit a rock and broke their lower unit off. There was no way we could get to them to bring them in quickly enough.”
Strachan and Anderson were not the only ones to have a problem with rocks. Carlson said nearly three-quarters of the boats in the field made unexpected contact with terra firma to some degree.
For most, it was just a reminder that the water level is extremely low this year. For others, like Ed Dombroskie and Jeff Brown, it was far more serious.
The Barwick pair saw their first day end within two minutes of leaving the dock when an unseen obstacle chewed up their prop and left them looking for a new one.
“We were just up at the bay and on the plane when we hit something hard,” said an obviously disappointed Brown. “We saw the guy in front of us hit something, but he kept going. We couldn’t.”
Even the derby officials were not immune to the river’s hidden hazards. Carlson said one of the spotter boats smashed in its front end and had to be towed to shore, while the OPP lost the services of its patrol boat for a week after losing its lower unit near the dam at Fort Frances.
“Yes, we were a victim of the river,” said Fort Frances OPP S/Sgt. Hugh Dennis. “We had an experienced marine officer and an MNR officer aboard and we still hit a rock.”
S/Sgt. Dennis estimated the damage to the motor at $2,000 and said the incident should serve as a reminder to all who use the river.
“We caution everybody to be very, very careful,” he warned. “Both the river and the lake are extremely low, so watch where you go.”
Rocks and sandbars notwithstanding, the Emo Walleye Classic has set a standard for fun and fishing. Not only was the attendance up from last year, so was the catch.
This year’s winning weight of 19.22 pounds was more than four pounds above last year’s—and the top five teams all finished ahead of the top weight of 15 pounds a year ago.
The water may be down, but it seems the fish aren’t.