GOVERNOR'S cUP wALLEYE tOURNAMENT

Fishing Tournaments Can Be Positively Stressful

By Bill Schneider, 7-14-08

	At the start of the second day, we're all ready to go. BELOW: And it's over, finishing the tournament with three minutes to spare. BOTTOM: MC Joe Herbold gets the scoop from winners Ken Schmidt and Tood Riggs (right).

They say you get older and wiser. Well, of late, I’ve seen a lot of older, but not much wiser--except Bud-weiser, of course.

That’s how it was on the second and final day of my first fishing tournament, the Governor’s Cup Walleye Tournament on Fort Peck Reservoir.

Case in point. When I decided to enter the tournament, I had a plan. Unlike my younger, more competitive days when I tried to beat everybody in any event I entered, my plan for my first fishing tournament was to beat somebody.

Then, unexpectedly, after a respectable 12th-place showing after the first day, I started to develop a new plan--beating a lot of veteran tournament anglers and perhaps even pulling the big upset and getting, as they say, “in the money,” which means the top 16 places out of 80 teams.

Let’s just say, bad idea, Bill.

The second day was opposite the first day in every respect. The weather was perfect, perhaps even too nice for walleyes (i.e. they like it rough). Our performance was also opposite.

The day started out the same--an official waving the green flag to start a watery version of a NASCAR race to your honey hole. Only this time my fishing partner, Mike Newton, president of Montana Walleyes Unlimited, had his Warrior cranked all the way up and we glided across the lake, smoothly, at 48 mph, leaving most boats in our wake.

We had higher expectations because we’d finished strongly the first day with a decent fish, a six-pounder, so we went back to that spot for more. But you guessed it, nothing. Hours passed, stress silently swelling up within us, but no walleyes, only one northern.

All day, the marine radio chatter told us other tournament anglers were weighing lots of big fish. That made each bite we missed more stressful. Finally, Mike hooked into a big fish, but it pulled off before we could get it in the boat. That’s stress!

Near the end of the day, we pulled up to a weigh boat with our one oversized minnow, our only walleye, a 14-incher, knowing we had plummeted down the standings with no chance of getting any prize money.

We were slightly consoled, though, when the wonderful volunteers in the weigh boat, four of the many who made the tournament possible, offered us a freshly cooked brat, even though we’d never met. How friendly is that?

About as friendly as you can get, which is close to how I describe my entire first fishing tournament experience. I can’t speak for the thousands of other tournaments, but at the Governor’s Cup, I didn’t run into the cold competitiveness I’d expected. All the anglers I met seemed anxious to help out the new guy (it was probably clear to them that I need a lot of help), and all the sponsors, officials and volunteers were as nice as people can be.

That’s partly the rural culture at play, but also seems to be the nature of the tournament angler, at least among the ameteur ranks. So, if you have avoided tournaments because of fear of intimidation and humiliation, I’d say don’t worry about it, at least at the Governor’s Cup.

In fact, the team who won it all, Todd Riggs and Ken Schmidt of Glasgow, were among the helpful and friendly. And these guys are stars who have every reason to look down on rookies. They probably own the world record catch in a two-day tournament, 93.58 pounds in last year’s Rock Creek Tournament held two weeks before the Governor’s Cup. They won this year’s Governor’s Cup with less than half that weight--42.62 pounds.

Just in case you think walleye fishing is nothing more than dropping a worm over the side of the boat and waiting for a bite, you should hear Riggs and Schmidt explain how they won it. At the awards ceremony, they gave out the details. “The key was using yellow hooks,” Riggs explained. “We used simple Lindy rigs with leeches, but we had to go for the deep bite, 20-27 feet.”

Mike and I looked at each other, each silently asking the same question. “Why weren’t we wise enough to try fishing in deeper water instead of spending most of the day fishing 8-12 feet?”

And yellow hooks? I didn’t even know they made them. But I’ll be buying some soon.

Out loud, we cursed about those two big fish we lost, one each day. Those two fish could have put us in the money. Still, we finished 38th out of 80 teams, so there were more behind us than in front, well ahead of my original plan.

Second place went Kris Keller of Wolf Point and Glen Eimers of White Lake, with 39.24 pounds, and in third were day one leaders Leon Garfield of Glasgow and Darcy Bunnell of Billings, 38.85 pounds.

Kevin Lynch of Huntley and Mike Bloch Lovell won the coveted big fish trophy with a 15.21-pound monster.

The awards ceremony, which is sort of a prize and cash distribution event, was most interesting. The Governor’s Cup has a lot of smaller divisions such as day money both days, a “guys and gals” division, a “zero to hero” prize (for teams who get zero weight the first day, but clean up the second day), and a big pike division. (Can you believe it? Mike and I won third place with our 7.18-pound northern.) Lund and Ranger also give out cash to teams who place highest using their boats.

So overall, my first-ever fishing tournament was a great experience for me, and it can be for you, too. If this series of articles piqued your interest, click here to enter the Governor’s Cup next year or here to check out the rest of the tournaments on the Montana Walleye Circuit.

Editor’s note: The first three articles in this series:

The Art of Prefishing
Mother Nature Always Win(d)s
The First Day is a Rodeo

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