Joey Payeur
Mom and Dad beat their son and his friend.
Then the defending titleholders showed up and beat them all.
The Fort Frances tandem of Bryan Gustafson and Brian White made it back-to-back victories in the 16th-annual “Castin’ for Cash” bass fishing tourament at Lake Despair Lodge this past Saturday.
Gustafson and White led wire-to-wire, posting the biggest weight and the biggest fish on both days of the 63-team event to claim the championship with a two-day total of 32.76 pounds to easily surpass runner-ups Doug and Solly McBride from Devlin with 30.41.
“It was a grind,” admitted Gustafson, who along with White had 16.33 on Day 1, then nudged past that standard with 16.43 on Day 2 to put them over the top despite coming in under their record-setting score from a year ago (34.57).
“Honestly, we got lucky and just ran into them out there.”
Gustafson and along with White caught a 3.97-pounder on Friday (16.33 total) and then a 4.15-pounder on Saturday (16.43), the only team either day to reel in a fish four pounds or heavier.
The McBrides, who were fourth after Day 1, had Saturday’s second-largest haul (16.33) to edge son Zack McBride from Devlin and partner Mike Wilson from Fort Frances and push them down to third (30.14) after being second following Day 1.
Another family factored into fourth place, as the father-son combination of Dallas and Cam Mosbeck from Emo came all the way up from eighth after Day 1, thanks to a 3.99-pounder that gave them 15.50 total on Saturday and 28.83 overall.
The Fort’s Braedon Keast and Devlin’s Jeff Bragg closed out the top five with a total catch of 27.90.
Rounding out the top 10 were Devlin’s Dale LaBelle and grandson Jeremy Shypit in sixth (26.96); Kenora’s Jeff Gustafson and Shawn McAughey in seventh (26.69); the Fort’s Jon Evans and son Emerson Evans in eighth (26.31); the Emo tandem of James and Colin Kaemingh in ninth (25.89) and the Fort’s Ron Bridgeman and Atikokan’s Dave Williams taking 10th (25.71).
