Daniel and Ron Lindner (Team #128) hadn’t even begun fishing on Day One of the tournament when they hit a rock going through a narrow pass. “We hit a rock that we knew was there, bent the whole propeller, broke half the skag off. Pretty much broke the lower unit,” […]
Local Sports
For their first time as partners in a tournament they did okay. In journalism circles, this is what we call an understatement. Kirk and Gene Boyer, who have fished non-competitively a countless number of times together since childhood and have been in numerous tournaments with other partners, had never competed […]
The 10th-annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship has come and gone, but the milestone anniversary is a good opportunity to look back at the beginnings of the tournament and the dedicated people who got it off the ground. Lionel Robert had been attending and emceeing at tournaments across Canada and […]
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 […]
Whether or not a team will be disqualified for coming in late at the end of the fishing day is an issue that often comes up at tournaments and is the source of much contention. The general rule that if a team is late for check-in, they lose their weight […]
There may have been some doubt in their minds. They might even have questioned their chances. But James and Bill Lindner remained confident. They were always confident. Confident in their ability. Confident in their skill. And confident that they would repeat as champions at the 10th-annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass […]
After the first day of action at the 10th-annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship, John Guzej and Ted Stewner find themselves in a familiar position—in second place behind James and Bill Lindner. Last year, after leading the pack heading into Day 3, the pair had to settle for second place—2.7 […]
They have been preparing for quite some time now. They’ve been studying harder than a Harvard law student about to take the bar exam, looking at wind patterns, cold and warm fronts, water temperatures, and anything else imaginable that would affect their fishing. For some anglers competing in the 10th-annual […]
The 10th-annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship got underway this morning with 138 teams vying for a record purse of $172,000, including the first-place prize of $50,000. Defending champs Bill and James Lindner were the first team to hit the throttle on Sand Bay at 7 a.m. in defence of […]
Shane Raveling and his partner, Jason Carlson, have been fishing Rainy Lake since Saturday—even though they only were on the waiting list for this year’s Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship. From early morning to late afternoon, they fished and patiently waited for their chance. They hoped for it. They wondered […]
They have a big, red bull’s-eye tattooed on their backs. James and Bill Lindner are the defending champions of the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship and everyone is watching them. Studying them. Noting their every action. Cataloguing their every response and jotting down there movements. They don’t mind, though, because […]
What Charles Darwin was to theories of evolution; (blank) is to the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship. The answer? John Maffei. Quite simply, he is the innovator, the contractor, the sculptor, the fabricator, the pioneer, and the creator of the largest fishing tournament in Canada. He is the reason why […]
