Merritt Ice Fishing Derby - A Popular Family Event

(Originally published in the Merritt Herald - Othmar Vohringer, The Outdoorsman Column) 

© By Othmar Vohringer

On Sunday, January 13, the Nicola Valley Fish & Game Club hosted its 12th annual ice fishing derby at Mamit Lake. The weather was mostly cloudy but without the cold winds common on that lake, making for cold but pleasant conditions. Close to 200 people and families attended the event for a day of family fun and fishing. Over the years the ice fishing derby has become a traditional staple of Merritt’s winter events that attracts many anglers from our region and beyond. The recent snowfall leading up to the derby had the organizers worried about the ice conditions on the lake. Measurements showed that the ice had not been as thick as in previous years and participants were asked to park vehicles on the lake shore as a safety precaution.

Due to a fractured elbow I was unable to attend the event from the beginning to the end, but have been told that the fishing has been fair with a few respectable trout being caught. A warm hospitality tent provided the anglers a place to warm up and consume free hot chocolate and coffee. For the hungry there were hotdogs with all the trimmings available for a minimal price of two dollars. Courtesy of the generous donations from the Merritt merchants and business community there were plenty of door and draw prizes awaiting the anglers and children plus cash prizes for first, second and third heaviest trout and heaviest coarse fish caught. The lucky winners this year are; B. Spinks and C. Mike (hidden weight tie), B. Smit (best coarse fish), P. Robison (1st. place trout), M. Mosley (2nd. place trout) and R. Mc Gowan (3rd. place trout).

White Sturgeon’s Increase in Trail, BC

© By Othmar Vohringer

It has long been known that the white sturgeon, a fish renowned for its primitive appearance, is under threat. Once abundant, it has declined drastically since the 1990s, with research showing that only 1,000 wild adult sturgeon currently exist in British Columbia’s upper Columbia River.

The federal government consequently classified the upper Columbia white sturgeon population as ‘Endangered’ under the Species at Risk Act in 2006.

Now, it looks like efforts to protect the species are working – with an increase in sightings of young white sturgeon in the City of Trail over the summer months. Gerry Nellestijn, an Environmental Watershed Steward in the Kootenays, who is part of a team that monitors between Hugh Keenleyside Dam and the Canada/US border, has seen more white sturgeon in the Columbia River, downstream of Trail, in recent years than ever before.

Fishing In BC Is Big Business For The Government

© By Othmar Vohringer

According to a report released by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC recreational fishing in British Columbia is big business with huge financial profits for the government. The report states that anglers contribute the staggering sum of half a billion dollars. Yes you read that right $500 Million. While the overall economy has declined and just now starts to pick slowly up again the fishing economy never slowed down. It fact it is growing and growing.

The study, which was conducted by noted fisheries economist Gordon Gislason, measured freshwater fishing across a variety of social and economic indicators and produced some impressive conclusions about this often overlooked sector.

Here is a basic breakdown of the financial contributions anglers make annually to our economy.

• 270,000 freshwater anglers spend $480 million annually on equipment, travel, accommodation and hospitality services.
• The 1,000 businesses that outfit freshwater anglers contribute $210 million in GDP, employ 3,900 full-time workers, pay $120 million in wages and benefits.
• Anglers contribute $125 million in provincial and federal taxes.
• BC anglers generate13 million dollars in fishing license revenue that in turn is reinvested in the fishing resource each year.
• Every $1 spent on stocking freshwater lakes and streams by the FFSBC produces $21 in spending by anglers.

This is impressive by any standard. But we’re not done. It gets even better. The above is only for the fresh water fishery but British Columbia also has a big tidal (ocean) sport fishery. The tidal water anglers are an even bigger contributor to the government coffers and employment than the fresh water fishery.

From that the provincial government gets 58.2 million dollars and the federal government gets 95.5 million. The tidal fishery provides 9,975 jobs on a provincial and federal level. This in turn generates 285 million dollars in revenue. Are you impressed now? You should be and next time you head out to your favorite fishing location hold your head a little bit higher in the knowledge that you are a major contributor to our economy.


This blog post has been brought to you by Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: BC Sport Fishing Economy, British Columbia, Fishing Economy Report

Record blue cat gives couple great fish story

This is one of the funniest (true ) stories that I have heard in a long time.

"I can always get another wife, but I may never get another fish like this."

Weldon Fortner knew he'd made a mistake when he said it, but, at the time, he was too busy to consider the ramifcations of the joke - like justifiable homicide.

His own.

But had it not happened, or, rather, had Fortner just kept his mouth shut, the story about his monster catfish would be just that.

Another story about another big fish.

It would have been an interesting story, too, since the catfish was 53 1/2 inches long, 23 inches around and weighed 85 pounds. It will probably be a world record for 40-pound line.

But it's the story behind the story that makes this one so much better. ...

Fortner, 63, and his wife of 26 years, Lisa, 53, were fishing for catfish in the Mississippi River near Vicksburg last Sunday. At 9:55 a.m., they got a bite.

"I looked over and saw the tip of my rod starting to bend slowly and it just kept bending," Weldon Fortner said. "I looked at Lisa and told her it looked like I had snagged a log and I grabbed the pole.

"Well, when I did that, I felt that it was a fish. And a big fish."

Fortner set the hook and the big fish shook its head but stuck to the bottom. Fortner couldn't budge it.

"Then after a few minutes, she decided to run for deep water and when she made that decision, she was gone," Fortner said.

That put Fortner in a bind. Using just a 7-foot medium action Shakespeare Ugly Stick Rod and an Ambassadeur 5500C reel, he didn't have the tackle to horse the fish or even slow its advance. With 40 pound line, he might have had 120 or 125 yards of line on the reel, most of which had already been taken by the fish.

He had no choice but to chase the fish to get line back, but the boat was tied to a piling and they were in strong current.

"I hollered to Lisa to get us loose," Fortner said.

His wife jumped up and entered the fray.

"I pulled on the rope and got us up to the piling, and all the time he was yelling to hurry," Lisa Fortner said. "I grabbed the piling and tried to get the rope ... and that's when it happened.

"He had had just told me not to let the boat run out from under me and it did. The current took the boat, I grabbed the piling and there I went."

Weldon Fortner said he heard something, turned and ...

"Lisa wasn't there," he said.

"Heck no, I wasn' there, Iwas dangling from that piling," she said. "I looked and there was water rushing under my feet."

The Fortners were in a sticky situation ... she more than he, for sure.

She was hanging on for dear life.

He was only holding on to a rod and reel attached to the biggest catfish he'd ever felt.

"I looked up at her and I looked at the rod and this is what I said: 'I can always get another wife, but I may never get another fish like this,' " Fortner said. "That probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever said."

No it wasn't, said Lisa.

"I figured he was kidding," she said. "At least at first, but then I thought about how much that fish meant to him. I had a good hold to the ladder on the piling. I climbed up and was OK so I told him to go catch his (#%$*) fish and then come back and get me."

Weldon Fortner didn't say how much consideration he gave that proposition. He said he looked at the reel and had precious little line left, but he did the only thing he could.

"I put the rod in a rod holder, cranked the motor and went and got Lisa," he said. "Then we went and got the fish."

Lisa Fortner said she was OK with things until she was safely back in the boat.

"That's when I looked at the depthfinder and saw it said 45 feet and then I thought about what he had said," she said Thursday, howling in laughter.

Read more>

Tags: Catfish, Fishing, Ugly Stick Rod, Ambassadeur Reel, Mississippi River, Vicksburg

World's biggest Largemouth Bass?

CARLSBAD, Calif. — "Chaos has broken out."
Well, what do you expect when you notify the media that you boated a potential world-record bass?

That was the story at the home of Mac Weakley, who early this morning caught a mammoth largemouth on tiny Dixon Lake in southern California that he and his longtime fishing partners Mike Winn and Jed Dickerson weighed out at 25.1 pounds on a hand-held digital scale.

If that weight stands up it would shatter what is considered to be the granddaddy of angling records — the 22¼-pound largemouth bass taken in 1932 at Georgia's Montgomery Lake by George Washington Perry.

"I feel good, awesome, in fact," said Weakley, 32, of Carlsbad, Calif, who used a white jig with a skirt and rattle on 15-pound line to boat the brute. "I'm just stoked to see a fish that big."

Claimed by many to be a mark that could never be eclipsed, the largemouth-bass record has become the thing of legends. It's the Joe DiMaggio 56-game hitting streak of the angling world.

"It's simply because there are people who are out there who didn't think a bass can grow to more than 22.25 pounds," said James Hall, editor of Bassmaster magazine. "It's because of how elusive the record has been for so many years."

Fortunately for the naysayers, the fish was documented by anglers with impressive resumes — Weakley and Dickerson each already are officially recognized for boating top-15 bass of all-time at Dixon Lake — and they claim to have witnesses, photo evidence of the catch and video documentation of today's behemoth on the scale.
"There is no smoke and mirrors," Hall said.

Dickerson believes the 25.1-pounder is the exact same fish that vaulted him to the No. 4 spot on The Bassmaster Top 25 list when he caught her on a swimbait May 31, 2003, at Dixon Lake — a drop-in-the-bucket, 72-acre impoundment in San Diego County. He knows this because she has the same distinguishing black beauty mark under her right gill plate. Back then she weighed 21.7 pounds, and quite clearly she still is a big fish in a small lake.

"It's the same fish I caught three years ago," said Dickerson, 33, a casino-industry employee from Oceanside, Calif. "I knew this was a world record before we even weighed it. It's the biggest, most ferocious bass in that lake, guaranteed."

Read the full story at ESPN

Picture courtesy of Marc Weakley

Tags: Bass Tournament, Trophy Bass, Marc Weakley, Bassmasters, California, Fishing, Carlsbad, Montgomery Lake, Largemouth Bass

Hungry catfish snags scientist by the foot

Here is a hilarious story I picked up from the Hutchinson News.

This tale sounds fishy enough, but victim has witness to 'attack'

HAYS - True to its species' reputation, a 30-pound flathead catfish roaming the bottom of a southeast Kansas river saw Curtis Schmidt's foot - and promptly chomped. And didn't let go until Schmidt hopped ashore.

"Nobody's ever heard of that before," Schmidt said, and he should know: he's an assistant curator of herpetology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.

And lest the tale sounds just plain fishy, Schmidt has a witness: Travis Taggart, also an assistant curator of herpetology at the Sternberg.

Schmidt's unusual encounter happened while he and Taggart were driving from northwest Kansas to Pittsburg for a late February meeting of the Kansas Chapter of The Wildlife Society.

On the way, they stopped near Neosho Falls to trap mudpuppies - aquatic salamanders - and put on their waders before stepping into the 33-degree Neosho River.

Something on the murky bottom bit Schmidt.

"I just started wondering what had hold of me," he said. "It just didn't hurt at all. I just felt it clamp around my foot."

Read more>

Tags: News, Catfish, Animal Attack, Neosho River, Kansas, Pittsburg

Monster Catfish

I found this tremendous monster catfish on KeesKennis Blog. Apparently this particular catfish weighs a staggering 140 pounds. Unfortunately there was not much more information available. If anybody knows where and whom that fish was taken I would like to know.

Tags: Catfish, Fishing

Tiger Trout

Eagle Eyes at the Idaho Fishin’ Times posted an interesting article about a rare trout species. The tiger trout is a hybrid between Brown trout and a Brook trout. Tiger trout are aggressive hunters that will pursue smaller fish in shallow waters. Hatcheries introduced this trout in some waters to help control the competing fish species such as chubs. Sport fishers like the tiger trout for the good fight they put up and because they are still rare.

You can read more about tiger trout on Idaho Fishin’ Times

Tags: Tiger Trout, Trout, Idaho, Blog, Fishing