For years, the Emo Walleye Classic and the Rainy River Walleye Tournament have offered a ‘River Kings’ award, but sponsor stipulations have meant that the award wasn’t presented very often; that changes with a new sponsorship from Frequency Hearing Centre.
Jackie McCormick is an audiologist and the owner of Frequency Hearing Centre, and she said the tournaments approached her family after the passing of her father, Bryan Bonot, to name the River Kings award in his memory.
“After my dad passed, a fellow angler put his name forth for the memorial award for the River Champs, which was generous and lovely, and you know, very nice for our family to have that award named after him,” McCormick said.
However, the award was sponsored by boat and motor companies, and there were stipulations behind winning the award requiring the right equipment. McCormick said when her mother heard about the stipulations, she wasn’t as keen to have her late husband’s name on the award.
“When it came out that there were a lot of stipulations on who could win, and it wasn’t a true ‘River Champion,’ and the fishing was kind of taken out of it. My mom decided that maybe she didn’t want his name with it.”
Also, McCormick’s sons took up fishing in the tournaments together, they had hoped to be in the running to win the award that had been named in his memory only to discover that because of the way the award was sponsored, anglers had to be fishing using a certain combination of boat and motor brands in order to win.
The family explained their position to the fishing tournaments and managed to come to a new arrangement.
“We took that to the Rainy River Committee, and then they came back and said they understood where we were coming from,” McCormick said.
“They asked if that were to change, would we be happy to put his name back on it? And we said absolutely. So then the conversation started about getting another sponsor, and of course, because I own a business, I had said that yes, we would definitely look at sponsoring, so I put forward some money and each tournament has also put money into it, so it’s sort of a three-way sponsorship, and it takes any stipulations out. The only stipulation now is that you have to fish both tournaments as the same team.”
The formerly named River Kings has also been re-christened River Champs, as female anglers are very much involved in both tournaments.
Bryan Bonot was an avid angler and regularly fished in both the Emo and Rainy River tournaments and even helped start a one-day fishing derby in Stratton that takes place over the Victoria Day long weekend.
“He did a lot of stuff,” McCormick said of her father. “He pretty much started the Stratton Fishing Derby, which is now in its 30th year. It used to be something that was held at his house, and then when it got too big, it moved over to the park, so that was sort of his little brain child. So that was important to him, and fishing was really important to him, and even within the family.”
Bonot insured his grandson caught the fishing bug early on.
“He started fishing with Callum in the Emo Tournament when Callum was nine, and so that became a thing that they did together, and so then, of course, after he passed, Callum still loves fishing and wanted to keep doing that,” she said.
“My dad would fish in a tournament all weekend, like pre-fish, fish the tournament, and then Sunday morning he would call and say, ‘Who wants to go fishing?’ So he just loved being out on the water and doing all that kind of stuff.”
Bonot was also prominent in the district curling and fastball scenes as well.
McCormick’s sons, Callum and Zander will be fishing in the Emo Walleye Classic this weekend, hoping to take advantage of their knowledge and experience of the river and maybe get close to winning the award named for their grandfather.
“They love the river,” McCormick said. “They know it very, very well. They spend a lot of time out there fishing so I’m glad that they can potentially win the award with their grandfather’s name on it.”
The Bryan Bonot River Champs award will be presented at the end of the Rainy River Walleye Tournament in September.
