Derby Days, AIM to please

Thanks to the Wyandotte Jaycees and to everyone involved for a great Kid's Fishing Derby last Saturday. The weather was perfect and the fish cooperated. A big thank you goes out to the bait shops that donated bait for the derby. The Wyandotte Boat Launch donated all the worms and minnows were donated by Bottom Line Bait and Tackle of Gibraltar, Bait and Tackle box of Trenton, The Lighthouse Bait Shop also of Trenton and the Dip Net from Ecorse. Please frequent these businesses because the value of the bait donated is higher this time of the year with the fishing and the weather turning outstanding at the same time.
Derby Winners –

5 – 8 age category

Most Fish – Jonathan Lesko – 13 fish
Largest Fish – Elizabeth Richardson
Smallest Fish – Sean Stambersky
Most Unusual – Kyla Summers – Napkin

9 – 13 age category

Most Fish – Clara Kissling – 10 fish
Largest Fish – Kayla Salamon
Smallest Fish – Wallen Woodward
Most Unusual – Joseph Crenshaw – plastic bag

Judges provided by – Wyandotte Big Boys

In the river a limit of silver bass is attainable with shiners and attention to your rod tip. In Lake Erie a limit of walleye is the norm trolling BBs with meat from Holiday Beach in Ontario to the shores of Enrico Fermi with direction of troll being the trick. Check your bait shop for info on either.
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The Gibraltar Fishing Derby is this weekend, Sunday June 12th. Top prize is $500 for the heaviest 5 walleyes. Many other fishing and raffle prizes will be up for grabs. Check-in at Lake Erie Metro between 6:30 and 9am with weigh-in at the ramp between 11am and 2pm. Fish fry to follow at the Gibraltar Comm. Center. $30 for entry into the tourney and dinner, $10 just for dinner. Kids under 12 fish free. Call Bob at 675-5182 for further info. MI waters only.
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A different type of derby took place in Brimley Michigan. The AIM Walleye tournament was held with Brett King registered 19 fish over three days to take first place and $40,000 in the AIM Bay Mills Resort and Casino Invitational Walleye Tournament. The winning recipe, according to tournament officials, came in the form of slow trolling cranks in shallow water. King jumped out to a big lead on Thursday with seven fish coming in at 26.56 pounds under the organization's catch-record-release policy, and added to his lead on Friday with another 29.02 pounds. Saturday's bite was a tough one for King, but with the overwhelming numbers he built on the first two days no one could catch him even though he only managed to pull two fish totaling 4.62 pounds in the finale.Joe Okada finished second with 49.33 pounds good for just over $7,000, while Robert Blosser came in third with 43.90 pounds and pocketed over $5,700.

Did you catch the 19 fish weighed in 3 days? The limit for walleye is 5 per day in Great Lakes waters of the UP. Do they get special dispensation for the over limits? No, this group of fishermen uses new technology to determine the amount of fish caught. The primary innovation is the exclusive AIM Catch-Record-Release™ (CRR™) format. This is something that many anglers have been clamoring for like Jack Kell from Southgate MI. “It’s a shame that they kill all those big fish just to have a tournament” is his sentiment. Most fishing organizations that have fishing tournaments try their best to keep the fish alive before and after weigh-in. Some studies indicate many of these fish die even days later and far from the weigh-in site, out of sight out of mind. With CRR, teams of Pro Anglers and Co-anglers measure each walleye on the official AIM ruler and take a digital photograph, record the length of each walleye on the official scorecard, and then immediately release the live fish. NO fish are brought to the “weigh-in” stage. Instead, the Pro Angler selects the SEVEN largest walleyes that are tallied for his daily weight. (The length of each walleye is converted to pounds and ounces using a standardized formula prior to taking the stage.)

The photos of the largest walleyes caught are displayed to the weigh-in fans – and also included in the live streaming of the proceedings on www.aimfishing.com. Because all fish are recorded and then immediately released, Pro Anglers are allowed to “weigh” fish within local “slots” that would otherwise be excluded from the daily bag.
The AIM Catch-Record-Release™ format has three huge advantages for the sport of competitive angling.
• First, AIM tournaments can be scheduled at the best times of the year for catching the most fish at each tournament site. Tournaments have been prohibited in many locations at certain times of the year due to fish kills associated with conventional formats that hold the fish in “live wells”.
• Second, AIM tournaments reward the Pro Anglers that catch the biggest fish – not the anglers that were fortunate enough to catch fish in a certain order, dictated by local slot limits and possession rules. As noted above, the daily weigh limits for AIM tournaments include the SEVEN largest walleyes. This also means that a Pro Angler can come from behind and advance many places; the excitement continues up to the last minute of the last day!
• Third, AIM Pro Anglers can not suffer penalties that are assessed in other formats for fish that are not releasable. With many events being decided by mere ounces, “dead fish” penalties are never a deciding factor in AIM tournaments.

Another key component of AIM Pro Walleye Series™ events is that most are being scheduled to coincide with local festivals. While tournament angling is exciting to the participants, it receives lesser interest from the general public. Scheduling AIM events within festivals helps to expose the sport of fishing to an audience of literally hundreds of thousands of new people. The festival attendees will see tournament anglers, along with their impressive boats and tow vehicles (and sponsor affiliations) up close at the AIM weigh-ins.
In addition to the weigh-in stage show for the local fans, the entire weigh-in is also broadcasted live at www.aimfishing.com. This live streaming includes interviews with the Pro Anglers and Co-anglers and photos of hundreds of the largest walleyes caught that day. Also featured are numerous videos taken by the AIM camera crew as well as video clips recorded by the anglers themselves. AIM has adopted the latest video technology to actually upload videos during the course of each tournament day. These “On the Water” videos are added continually to www.aimfishing.com (plus your iPhone) during the day and they provide the head-to-head competition that has never been possible to cover in tournament angling before. On Day Three of each tournament the top Pro Anglers’ boats are equipped with the AIM Pro Track™ GPS systems. Pro Track™ systems provide continual GPS tracks that can be followed all day at www.aimfishing.com. The GPS tracks not only show the exact locations of the leaders but also their travel speeds – allowing viewers to discern whether the trolling bite is working or the leaders have switched to jigging or are making a high-speed run to try a different “secret location.”

Their next tournament is June 22-24th; check them out on-line to witness the new format. Good Luck Mark Martin, http://www.markmartins.net/
Get Outdoors Downriver!