Joey Payeur
Duane Cridland and Chad Hanson shook so many hands on Saturday, one might have thought they were candidates for this fall’s federal election.
The Fort Frances duo came within one team of the all-time comeback story in Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship history, but still were glad to bask in the glow of their second-place finish under the big tent at the Sorting Gap Marina.
“It’s surreal after being involved with the tournament for all 21 years, but just the last two years fishing in it,” said Cridland, who finished 33rd with Hanson in his debut as an FFCBC angler last year.
“To experience what we did today was one of the best feelings you could get.”
Sitting in 14th place after Day 2 on Friday, Cridland and Hanson got to watch the start of the top-10 parade of boats from the “hot seat” as the tournament leaders after hauling in the top bag of Day 3 with 18.31 pounds—giving them a three-day total of 49.90.
One by one, each contending team came on stage—only to leave by giving handshakes laced with disappointment to Cridland and Hanson as their respective Day 3 weights weren’t enough to vault them into the lead.
The shocker of the nine teams that fell short was the 2012 championship duo of Mark Raveling (Longville, Mn.) and Mike Luhman (Deer Park, Wis.), who were tied for third after Day 2.
In an award-winning acting performance, the pair motioned to the crowd to get excited after showing off three fish—only to abruptly disembark from the boat having come up two fish short of their five-fish limit.
“With only three teams left, I started getting butterflies,” admitted Hanson.
Cridland, who is in remission after battling cancer over the last couple of years, took a different perspective.
“It might have been more enjoyable than nerve-wracking for us,” he chuckled.
“We were discussing it in the boat and it turned out that’s a better seat to be in than being in the parade.”
Cridland and Hanson were on the brink of becoming the first team to win the FFCBC title with less than 50 pounds over the three days and also the first to win after starting Day 3 outside of the top 10.
But Steve Sandberg (Brooklyn Park, Mn.) and his brother, Scott (Ham Lake, Mn.), changed the last page of the fairytale by retaining their lead after Day 2 with a mark of 16.24 pounds to give them 52.19—just under two-and-a-quarter pounds heavier than the Fort Frances duo.
“It was interesting to put ourselves in others’ shoes with the finish and seeing how close it was,” said Cridland.
“I’m not sure I want to say we can get better because there’s only one place left to go.”
Cridland said Saturday’s suspense never would have happened if not for Hanson’s instincts late in the day Friday.
“It was a Chad last-minute hunch,” he revealed.
“We caught a fish with about 10 minutes left and we made it back in with about a minute left,” he noted.
“That fish moved us from somewhere in the 30s up to 14th,” Cridland said.
“It was a case of pull out the fish, bang bang, let’s move on in a hurry.”
Cridland and Hanson were part of a final top 10 that was made up exactly half of teams who were non-parade participants, including three of the top five.
Chad Johnson (Rogers, Mn.) and John Janousek (Nissiwa, Mn.) rode a roller-coaster, going from sixth after Day 1 to out of the top 10 on Day 2 to all the way up to third place with a bag of 17.33 pounds to end up with 49.41.
Richard Rud and Jon Austin (International Falls), the 2011 FFCBC co-champs, also came from back in the pack to wind up fourth (48.43).
Siblings Rene Cadene (Atikokan) and Morgan Cadene (Cranbrook, B.C.) moved down two spots from third last year but moved up two places from Day 2—winding up in fifth place (48.06).
Bill Godin (Devlin) and two-time FFCBC champ Dave Lindsay (Kenora), who joined forces last year to win the International Falls Bass Championship, grabbed sixth place (48.03).
That was just ahead of the FFCBC rookie teen duo of Nick Vescio and Mitch Siciliano (Thunder Bay), who served notice they will be a force for years to come by finishing seventh (47.91).
The Green Bay, Wis. tandem of Caleb Colwell and Tim Klug maintained their eighth-place finish after Day 2 (47.69).
Meanwhile, another Fort Frances team wrote a pretty good story of its own as Denis Barnard and Colin Barton hung on for ninth place (47.61).
Barnard teamed up with the younger Barton after winning the 2000 FFCBC with his dad, Clint, and following his partner of the last few years, Scott Gobeil, being unavailable due to health issues.
They were knocking on the door after moving into second place after Day 2. But Barnard and Barton had their lowest bag of the tourney (13.12 pounds) on Saturday to slip down the standings.
Tied for 10th place were Connor Burton and Jeff Engstrom (Kenora) and brothers Duane and Travis Peterson of Bemidji, Mn. (47.55).
Saturday’s big fish became a contest between the husband-and-wife team of Doug and Solly McBride (Devlin).
With Solly openly admitting there was a fun battle for bragging rights, Doug weighed in his top catch at 4.80 pounds.
But she got the last laugh when her lunker tipped the scales at 5.06—the second-biggest of this year’s FFCBC.
The father-son tandem of Luc and Brale Levesque (Fort Frances) had a glorious start to their week conclude with the hardest of luck.
Leading after Day 1 with a mark of 18.79, and still in contention in sixth place after Day 2, the Levesques suffered major mechanical issues Saturday while fishing at their spot a long way from where they launched that morning.
By the time they could nurse their wounded vessel back to port, it was past the 4 p.m. deadline to arrive back at the Sorting Gap Marina.
That meant their five-fish catch of 16.20 pounds, which would have given them third place overall at 49.44, was ineligible to be added to their previous total of 33.24.
It pushed them all the way down to 69th place.
“It took us around two hours and 20 minutes to come back,” said Luc Levesque, the frustration still thick in his voice.
“There’s nothing we could do.”
As for two teams pegged as pre-tourney favourites, it was a week to forget.
Two-time defending champs Jeff “Gussy” Gustafson (Kenora) and John Peterson (Bemidji) ended up in 38th place (42.07).
“That was tough fishing this week, the toughest we’ve seen in a long time,” Gustafson lamented on stage Saturday.
“It happens to everyone,” noted Peterson.
“You can’t get them every day.”
And Bryan Gustafson (Fort Frances) couldn’t duplicate the success he had with Brandon McMillan (Clewiston, Fla.) last year when they finished second.
Gustafson and his new teammate, Brian McNanney (Sioux Narrows), weighed in the biggest fish of the tourney on Day 1 at 5.65 pounds, coming close to the all-time record of 5.94 set in 1998 by Denny Nelson and Dave Smith.
But that was the highlight of the week for the pair as their weights dropped each day to leave them in 26th spot overall (44.11).
