Lucas Punkari
For Pat and Wayne Howard, the way they’ve been able to win the annual “Castin’ for Cash” tournament on Lake Despair is starting to become very familiar.
The Clearwater couple, who run Ross’ Camp, jumped from sixth place after the first day of fishing on Friday all the way to the top of the podium Saturday as their two-day total of 28.81 pounds gave them their second tourney title.
The Howards finished in first back in 2009 with a weight of 26.32 pounds, while he previously had won the event in 2005 with Jason Cain.
“We were in fifth place in 2009 going into the final day of the tournament, and when I won with Jason in 2005, I think we were in sixth place then also,” Wayne Howard recalled.
“We always like to win,” he added. “But being up on the stage isn’t really as nerve-racking as you might think as this is a fun event for us.
“This is the only time in the year that we are able to get away and take part in a tournament, so I guess this is a good way to finish things off,” he smiled.
The Howards put themselves into contention with a strong showing on Day 1. Their five bass tipped the scales at 13.92 pounds, putting them into sixth spot heading into Day 2.
“Yesterday [Friday] we probably caught more fish than we did on Saturday,” Pat Howard admitted.
“But if you missed a bass, you would miss your chance at catching a fish,” she stressed.
“And today [Saturday] was the same thing as people were seeing the fish but they were not getting the bites.”
“We didn’t really pre-fish the lake a whole lot going into the weekend,” noted Wayne Howard.
“It’s just a matter of knowing the water really well from guiding on it, and being lucky enough to not miss many fish,” he reasoned.
During both days of the tournament, the Howards did a lot of trekking around the chain of lakes that are used for the event, which turned out to be a key to their eventual victory.
“Most of the fish that we caught were up on Jackfish,” Wayne Howard explained.
“On Friday we caught some on Despair and today [Saturday] we caught fish on Footprint,” he revealed.
“Through guiding all of the time, we were able to know what areas would hold the fish and when they will be there.
“We spent a longer amount of time in certain areas than others, but we moved around a lot, though,” Howard added.
On Saturday, the Howards caught three of their fish before 10 a.m., with their other two catches coming just after 1:30 p.m., including a 4.41-lunker that was the big fish of the day.
“That was the last catch of the day and it paid off in the end,” Wayne Howard said.
“We had fished in that area on Footprint yesterday [Friday] and we didn’t catch any fish.
“But when we went back there today [Saturday], we happened to catch one,” he added.
After finding out their final weight early during Saturday’s weigh-in process, the Howards had to wait around a bit before returning to the stage to sit on the hot seat as the final five boats were pulled in front of the stage.
However, only one of the final five were able to fill their five-fish allotment, which allowed the Howard to stay in first place and take home the title.
“That surprised me a lot, especially with some of those teams catching only two fish,” Pat Howard said.
“They are all good anglers and we thought that they would get more fish than that,” her husband added.
“I’m not sure why they would struggle, as we did also, but we just got luckier than they did,” he reasoned.
One of those teams that struggled on Saturday were Day 1 leaders Paul Visser and Neil Cooper of Fort Frances, who came up empty-handed on Day 2 after rocketing into first place with an event-best one-day total of 16.09 pounds on Friday.
“Yesterday [Friday] was really good for us as we caught a lot of fish in the morning and we had a full bag by 10 o’clock,” Visser explained.
“We upgraded our fish a couple of times after that, and by noon we relaxed a bit as we knew that we were going to be coming in with a good bag.
“But today [Saturday], things just happened out there and it was tough day overall, not just for us but for everybody,” Visser added.
Some of the other teams struggled, however, defending champ Jeff Gustafson of Kenora was able to move up in the standings on Saturday as he and his partner, Caleb Colwell of Green Bay, Wis., jumped from ninth to second with a two-day catch of 27.33 pounds.
Gustafson, who was unable to team up again with his fiancée, August Collinson, to defend last year’s title due to a prior commitment, and Colwell had two consistent catches of 13.56 pounds on Friday and 13.77 pounds on Saturday, which proved to be a key factor to their showing once the final standings shook out.
“I figured that we would move up as we doubled our weight from the first day, but I was a little bit surprised that we moved up that much,” admitted Colwell.
“I thought we would have a pretty good shot of staying in the top 10, but you just never know what’s going to happen,” echoed Gustafson.
“On Friday, we caught a three-pound fish, which was one of the biggest ones we had during the day, about four minutes before we had to come back in and that proved to be huge for us,” he added.
The one team in the top five after Day 1 that was successful in catching five fish on Saturday was the International Falls tandem of Larry Foss and Joel Pagnac, who slipped from second to third in the final standings with a total weight of 27.04 pounds.
Competing in their third “Castin’ for Cash” event, Foss and Pagnac vaulted into second place with a catch of 15.81 pounds on Friday. But their 11.23-pound haul on Saturday proved to be 1.78 pounds short of capturing top spot.
“We thought that we might of had a shot at the lead when we came in, but we just didn’t have enough fish,” Pagnac lamented.
“Most of the time in pre-fishing, the fishing was really good, and I think that pressure on the lake just took its toll and that might of been what happened today,” he reasoned.
“Everybody struggled except for one team, and you have to give a lot of credit to them.”
Bryan Gustafson and Brian White finished in fourth place with a two-day weight of 26.21 pounds, with Pat Cross and Dave Williams rounding out the top five 22.98 pounds).
Tyson Romyn and Matt Redford caught the biggest fish of the tournament for the second-straight year—a 4.69-pound lunker on Friday, which was bigger than the 4.35-pounder they reeled in last year.
