Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By JUSTIN LIBERTOSKI
BUTTERNUT, Wis. — The 11th annual Justin Donner Memorial Fisheree took place Saturday at Donner’s Bay on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage, drawing around 700 participants.
The fishing tournament is put on each year by the JPD Warrior Project to help raise awareness for suicide prevention.
The event began in January of 2006 and has been gaining more participants each year.
People travel from all over the country, including Michigan, Minnesota and California.
“We even had six people from Japan,” said organizer Jeff Donner.
Rules for the event changed, beginning with last year’s tournament. Under the new rules, the largest fish in each of the four categories — walleye, northern pike, perch and crappie — wins a $100 prize. All the other contestants are allowed to register one of their fish, no matter the size, to have their name put into a drawing for a chance to win first through fifth place prizes. The changes were made to keep the contestants interested and give them a reason to stay, even if they don’t catch the biggest fish organizers said.
Vic Saeger caught the winning walleye, a 26.5-inch fish. The first place drawing went to Sally Hofer, while Jake Herbst won second place, Mike Lempke won third, Susi Koshak took fourth and Eric Bennin won fifth place.
The winner in the northern pike division was Carter Christian with a 26.16-inch fish. Jeff Scherwinski won the first place drawing, Wayne Schnautz took second, Joe Binning won third, Mike Peters took fourth and Eric Bennin won fifth.
Winner in the crappie division was Dale Mattes with a 14.25-incher. In the drawing, Rick O’Meara won first, Tom Sharp took second, Brandon Huettl was third, Cory Eimermann took fourth and Dylan Niebauer won fifth.
Mike Lempke caught the top perch, at 11.5 inches. Kraig Binning won the first place drawing, Greyson McCulloch took second, Jack Campbell was third, Johnny Miller took fourth place and Rob Rebne won fifth.
In the kids division of the tournament, each division had only two winners.
The walleye division winners were Max Brunner and Ben Lee.
Northern pike division winners were Carter Christian and Maddie Pierce.
Brandon Huettl and Zabery Eimermann were the crappie winners, and perch division winners were Clayton Lyons and Baylie Schuh.
All of the money generated by the event and the JPD Warrior Project goes to various food pantries, charities, scholarships and motivational speakers, according to organizers.
Next year’s tournament is set for Jan. 28.
For more information on the tourney, visit jpdwarrior.com.
