Sioux Narrows pair bag derby

Mel Giesbrecht and Chris Bell made the most of their first time fishing on Lake Despair over the weekend.
The veteran fishing duo from Sioux Narrows took advantage of slow bites suffered by the first-day leaders to leapfrog from third place to capture the second-annual “Castin’ for Cash” bass derby and $5,000 top prize Sunday.
Their two-day total was 22.48 pounds.
While Giesbrecht had pre-fished all-day Thursday, the pair had never seen the lake together until the first day of the tournament Saturday.
“That was our first time on the lake,” said Bell. “We worked a lot on our experiences from different lakes, which helped a lot. We were very fortunate.”
“Being new to the lake, we didn’t have as many spots as some of the local anglers, so the few spots we had, we hit hard,” echoed Giesbrecht.
Kelvin Caul (Devlin) and Ted Heyens (Stratton) took second place and $2,000 with a 20.44-pound total, but they knew bringing only four of a possible five fish to the weigh-in yesterday cost them the title.
“It makes that one two-pounder the difference,” said Heyens.
Day One leaders Jody Shypit and Dale LaBelle of Devlin couldn’t follow up their 13.06 pounds on Saturday, reeling up just 6.88 yesterday to finish in third place ($1,000).
Bill and Jay Albright earned $500 for their fourth-place finish (19.88 pounds).
Rounding out fifth through 10th place (winning $300 each) were Dave Byrnes/James Asplund (19.74 pounds), Pat Cross/Keith Cates (19.06), Paul Jewiss/Dale Strachan (17.88), Dallas Mosbeck/Jason Caul (17.32), Darrin Ward/Mike Mihichuk (17.32), and Dennis/Glen Smith (16.86).
Defending champs Cory Calder and Dave Woodgate only bagged 2.72 pounds on Day One and quickly were knocked out of contention.
Two $300 cash prizes went to “big fish” winners—Shypit and LaBelle with a 3.46-pounder on Saturday and Ward and Mihichuk on Sunday (4.34 pounds).
A total of 54 boats competed.