Prairie Knights Casino Walleye Tournament.

 Just wanted to let you know we have a request in for the results and will be posting ASAP.  Thanks for your patience.  

I fished the tourney and can give you a few details as to who won, how much and big fish are concerned.

the team of Nelson, Nelson, Mark won the tournament with a weight of  30 pounds and some change.  these final weights will be off a little because they include a basket that was approximately 3#.    SO the winners had an actual weight of around 27 pounds with a limit of 9 fish.   Three man/woman teams were allowed to keep 15 and weigh 9, two man/woman teams were allowed to keep 10 and weigh 9.  

I think 2nd was around 28. pounds (with the basket) and third was  27 and change.  Fourth was 26 and change (my first cousins' team) with the third largest fish in the tourney, a 8.14 (from memory)  with the basket; therefore about a 5 pounder without.

Largest fish of the tourney was a 10.14 (with the basket) thus around 7 without.   $650 for the largest fish.

First place was a guaranteed $7000.   20th place got their entry fee back, $250.  A total of 76 teams participated including the likes of pros Ron Seehloff (24#),  Mike Peluso (almost 20#), and Joe Lundquist (26#).   

The prefish was kindof like fishing in another state.  There was really not a lot of wind thurday and friday to speak of.   There was a  light breeze and then finally some wind on tourney  day.   Fishing out of a buddy's buddy's 21 foot Ranger was a little comfy, compared to what I'm used to.

Our best fishing day out of the three days I was out there was Friday.   We went through a lot of fish(30-35) and some over 20inchers  along with a lot of 17-19 inch fish.   Tourney day saw us toss 4 fish back in the 15-17.5" range in the first half hour because of the fish we caught the day before.    By Noon we were wishing we would have tossed those in the livewell nonetheless.    Only two in the well by noon, 20.5" saugeye and a 19 'eye.     We had a rally late and ended the day with 13 in the well and a total weight of our biggest 9 fish of just over 20 #.   We placed low in the money and got our entry fee back.   Another quarter of a pound or so would have doubled our money.   Our  smallest fish we weighed was 16" so we actually threw that quarter pound back early in the morning, that fat 17.5 incher !!!!!! All in a day of Tourney fishing.    One never knows how it will go, which ones you should throw in the well and which ones should go over; back into the water.   

I won't go into specifics as to where we fished or caught fish because I respect the rights of those that fished with me.   I can tell you that we had 15 rods littering the floor when we were done.    6 crank rods, 6 jig rods and 3 lindey rods and they all caught fish throughout the three days we were on the water.   I can tell you that our biggest fish WE caught consistently came on the jig rod BUT we did have many teams that finished ahead of us that caught all their fish cranking.    Remember this tourney had boundries of the Cannonball river to the ND SD border.

We had a team that talked to us on Saturday at the weighin that was prefishing beside us on Friday. They said we absolutely lit it up beside them and they weren't catching anything.   Just one of those days when everything goes your way I guess. 

I ventured out on Land today to see some of the guys fishing the Tumbleweed today in that 20-50 mph wind.  Watched from shore a few boats catching fish in an area I knew I could drive up to and not get out of the truck.    It looked absolutely miserable in that area.   But in ND with 3 days of no wind, it should blow on the fourth not????

good fishing

Some other comments on the River fishing specifically and tourney fishing in general.

The system looks to be pretty healthy.   We took a photo of the smallest walleye we caught on the judge board, a 4.5 inch walleye.   When held up to the light for a photo, it was almost transparent.   Those little guys were plentiful and bit like little perch.   Our largest walleye of the day Saturday also bit like that so never, never think that little peck, peck, peck is always a perch or little walleye.    We called those plentifull 4.5 inch to 8 inch walleye the FFA; future fish of America!

We caught perch, more than I ever have (on the river) or can remember in 3 days.  

Most all the fishermen/women are pretty friendly out there.   One guy by himself during the tourney Saturday had such a scowl on his face I don't even think his dog in the boat loves him.  WE said hi to him and he just scowled at us.   Have some fun out there.    If I'm on your spot, come on in and say hi.  If your on my spot I may come in and say hi or leave depending on the size of the spot.   But don't scowl!!  NOT in a boat or On the water in a boat with your dog!!  Looks like the dog was having fun anyway. 

I can't close without mentioning all those 12 inch northerns we caught.   Wow!  pesky!!  Can you imagine all those growing up in the weeds back there in the flooded timber/weeds.     I think somewhere down the road I will maybe think about putting a steel leader in front of my crankbaits.  :)

again good fishing!

I second all the small (fingerling) fish...thats all we caught  :(  good for the future though. and there were many friendly fisherman that actually did wave back when you did.

Thanks for the report Ristorapper?

If this system keeps going as strong as it has been for the last few years  the fishing is only gonna get better. This spring fishing south of Beaver Bay where ever we went it didn't matter if you were right next to shore of out in the middle of the lake there were bait fish everywhere along the surface. Not sure if they were shad or white bass.

Have also been tangling with lots of small pike.  In a few years there should be some real hogs in there. Hope the water stays up.

Yep IntroC  if we can only keep the water.   I saw truck loads and truck loads and truck loads of walleye taken this spring and I hope and pray those little walleye out there will be our future.   But I do remember pulling in a 14-15 inch walleye up at lake Sakakawea several years back.   THEN all of a sudden a huge northern hit the walleye.    Our future of walleye are out there and so are its predators; us and the northerns!!  We need that flooded vegitation to help protect those little wascals so they can grow to be big wascals.  

Click here for the 2009 Prairie Knights Casino Walleye Tournament.  

I also wanted to send a big thank you to Prairie Knights Casino and their staff for doing an outstanding job on putting on such a well ran event.  Top notch!

Finally another thank you to all the anglers who fished it.  There were a lot of great sticks in this tourney and was a lot of fun being around such a great group of people.  

Never in my life have I caught so many 12 inch Pike with a few same sized Hybrid Skis mixed in.  I have also NEVER seen so many fish stacked in a channel all over a system as I did for 3 days on Oahe prefishing and fishing the Casino.  Archs everywhere on the graph!!

WASCALS that's what I want more WASCALS.........:-)

luveyes Said:
Never in my life have I caught so many 12 inch Pike with a few same sized Hybrid Skis mixed in.  I have also NEVER seen so many fish stacked in a channel all over a system as I did for 3 days on Oahe prefishing and fishing the Casino.  Archs everywhere on the graph!!

Hybrid Skis?? As in tiger muskie?

Intro,

Yes sir.  We were surprised to say the least.  Caught 2-3 of them during the tourney.

Risto,

Really enjoyed the post.  Sounds like a great tournament and great fishing.  One suggestion, get rid of the basket weight.  I know it is trivial but it makes things a little confusing.

If we are lucky enough to keep all the flooded cover Oahe is going to be a pike paradise in about 3 years. Thats a big IF unfortunately. I have also noticed what looked like hybrid pike, whats up with that?

Basket weight really suprised some.   I was at the stage looking over the board and Brad Davis (Pwt/Aim/FLW pro)  walks up and gasped at the weights esp. the big fish weights.  Until I filled him in on the additional basket weight.   I saw him out there working over the same waters we were during the prefish.   Said he was having trouble finding fish that stacked up to what showed on the board.    Put 'em in a three pound basket and see how you come out I told him!  

One would think it would be easy to cancel out that basket but..........I'm no weigh master.

I'd also like to thank PKC for putting the tourney on and for the BIG MUDDY guys the likes of Darryl Bosch,  Greg Ehli and Todd Eckroth (I think that is his name) and any and all the other folks that helped with the tourney.   We had some fun out there.

Not so sure on the basket weight being part of the weights at all.  The 5# fish that were weighed were most definately not just 2# fish....  Cant fully agree with Ristos take on the weights.  We estimated we had 19-20# and had 19.98, so I am pretty sure they zero out the weight of the basket itself.  Actually almost 100% sure of it.

So my take is the weights are the weights.  No minus for basket etc.

I agree with luveyes on this one,  the basket weight was not part of the equation.  

No need to be a weighmaster Risto.  Put the basket on the scale and hit the "tare" button.  Every digital scale known to mankind has one.

I saw Brad Davis on the water on Friday just after the fog lifted.  A real friendly guy.  Plenty of the 5-8lb fish to be had in the system, just werent found by us during the tourney and they dont seems to be stacked or schooled at this time.  Like most places one here and one there.

The more I think about it the basket absolutely could not have been a part of the weights.  The 3 fish for 4.67 (lowest placing team that weighed a fish) would have had about a .5lb average fish...  No one in their right mind would have kept an 8 inch fish even in a tough bite situation.

Even the Tumbleweed started the weights with a -1 plus pound showing on the scale to account for the basket used.  The basket was wiped down after every team as well starting everyone at zerao and leveling the field from the start. 

Well!!  Basket weight or no basket weight included there was some error.  

OUR big fish of the day sure didn't weigh +5 pounds or anywhere near it.   If you subtracted off 3 # for the basket it was not anywhere near 2 pounds either.   SO there was some error and I'm hoping equal for all contestants.  

I talked directly to one of the three in the boat with the largest walleye.   HE said it was a 7 pounder and the board showed 10.14.  THEREFORE that is where I came up with a three pound basket deduction.  

I understand there should be a tare button on any scale but did they use it??

I guess the only one that can answer that question is Darrell Bosch, the weighmaster.

I'll agree with Ristorapper on this one.  Being part of a team that struggled, it was evident that the weight of the basket had to be included in the weight posted.  Did hear the basket weighed about 3 pounds by other fisherman but don't know what the official basket weight was.