2001 Great Lake Tournaments

DNF = Did Not Fish

Rockport -

Usually the funnest tournament that the BWSA puts on, but it was not this year. We finished overall in 5th place. It was not much fun having to avoid the Indian Trap nets that are allowed there now. We still ended on catching around 100 pounds of fish for the two days.
Once again we were jinxed by a member of our own crew. See, there was a sidebet for big fish for the weekend, and on the second day Mike caught a very nice 22 lb king that beat all of the fish caught on Saturday. However, a member of the crew (Lloyd), said that this fish was going to be the big fish for the tournament. Once those words came out of his mouth, the first mate of the Fishigan knew it was not going to be. It ended up getting beat by one fish, a 27 lb king. 
Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Gerry Rymar and Lloyd Rymar.

Grindstone/Port Austin II -

We struggled all day, but managed a 3rd place. We left Grindstone at 5:20 and set lines at 5:40 in 100 FOW. Picked up a King at 6:30 on a Core and a Half. Then we had nothing for quite a while, so we moved out to 130-155 FOW. We really were playing catchup because a few boats did really well in the morning. The Sun came up fast, so we decided to change up our setup. We had just finished changing things when we got a really nice king on a rigger. It took out about 100 feet of line or so and got off. We finally boated our second king at 9:30 and then another at 10:00. We still needed two fish, because we can weight in five fish; plus we wanted another one because we needed to bump out a 4 pounder that we had. We boated our 4th fish at 11:00. And then at 11:45, we hooked into our biggest fish yet for the day, a 15 pounder. So we ended up 5 for 6 for a total of 47 pounds. Capt. Paul Zimmer and his boat, Donna Mae, won with 67 pounds. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, and Phil Clark.

Bluewater Classic -

We fished Wednesday and Thursday out of Lexington and had about 30-40 pounds of fish each day. All smaller fish, but we were boating at least 10 fish a trip. We wanted size though, so we moved up to Sanilac Friday morning and managed to produce the same size fish (2-3 pounders). So we had to decide which port we wanted. We chose Lex for a couple of reasons, which ended up being a mistake. We started straight out of Lex Saturday morning and only had one Laker. We pulled lines and ran to the Price and managed to get a nice size king and a bigger laker. Total of 13.70 lb for day one. At the weigh-in, we talked to the guys how were in second. They said they were fishing north of Sanilac a few miles and ended up with 77 pounds. Sunday Morning our goal was to grab the port prize for Lexington. We ended up running north of Sanilac and managed to land 8 fish weighing 28.18 pounds (all small fish). We were praying for that nice 10-12 pound king but it did not happen, and we ended up missing the port prize by 12 pounds. Our total wight was 41.88 lb, which was not bad for fishing out of lexington, but was not good either. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Dave Lenich, and Phil "the thrill" Clark.

Salmon Stakes - 

It was tough fishing on lower Lake Huron. Around 200 boats fished this tournament and less that ten had over 30 pounds of fish. Even with our 15 rods in the water, we were still one of the less fortunate boats. We were 4 for 4. 1 small King, 1 Laker (Throw-back), 1 very small Coho (Throw-back), and 1 Steelhead. The club that we belong to did win the tournament, which is what we were fishing for. Largest catch was 71 pounds out of Lexington, and the largest fish was just shy of 22 pounds. I don't know if I have ever seen so many fish in the 16-18 pound class range this yearly in the year out of Lake Huron, so maybe it will compete with Lake Michigan this year. Last year we haad 22 fish over 20 pounds, only 3 coming from Lake Huron and the rest coming from Lake Michigan. It looks as though we will be missing the Fish-On tournament, so go luck to all that fish. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Lloyd Rymar, Gary LeBell, Joe LeBell.

Algonac Lions - 

We did not fish as well as last weekend. We were 2 for 2 with only 6 lb. The top boat had 23 lb. Around 30 boats fished the tournament BAD. I would not call it ulgy because several boats did not catch a fish. Conditions were not the greatest with the wateer being pretty stained and it rained for more than half of the tournament. Too bad the tournament was not on friday, because fishing was much better, with several boats reporting 6 to 9 fish being caught. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Lloyd Rymar, and Dave Lenich.

Muskrat Classic - 

We ended up 4th out of 16 boats. Actually, we have fished this tournament 4 of the last 5 years and have finished 4th each time. This time we had 14 lb 3 oz and the first place boat had 16 lb. We ended up 4 for 4, biggest fish was a 12 lb Laker. That is all we will post now, seeing we have another tournament this weekend out of the same port. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Dave Goldenbogen, Phil Clark, Matt Gordon, and Craig Waelens.

This Page was last Updated on:  01/06/2004

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