Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MITCH KOSKI measures a lake trout during the Sunday Saxon Harbor Boating Club fishing contest. All of the lakers had to be between 20 to 25 inches to be kept.
SAXON, Wis. - Fishermen participating in the 25th annual Saxon Harbor Spring Classic fishing contest sailed into the harbor on Sunday just before yet another lightning storm struck the area.
The coolers of fish were quickly measured and weighed under a tent near the boat landing by 2 p.m. Then the competitors from 32 boats and spectators scrambled to get out of the rain from the storm, while the results were being tabulated.
Skin Deep, skippered by Dan (Jumbo) Talkowski, Ironwood, won first place, followed in second by The Clipper, with skipper Mike Hegewald.
The skies brightened for the awards presentation, with third going to Black Dawg, Jim Cox; followed by Howie Fish of Jody Moore; Star-Kissed, Charlie Maslanka; O Sea D, Byron Anderson, and On the Spot, Tommy Hicks.
The forecast called for rain and lightning for all three days of the contest, but Sunday provided good weather until the storm blew in.
It was a rough day of fishing, weather-wise, on Saturday, ending with heavy fog.
Wisconsin's new lake trout rules weren't popular with the fishing teams. The new bag limit allows two lake trout between 20 and 25 inches per angler and one fish longer than 40 inches.
Since there were no 40-plus lakers caught during the weekend, that meant the longest lake trout measured could only be 25 inches. Most of the fish measured were around the same size, with an occasional salmon, brown trout or rainbow mixed in.
On Saturday, Howie Fish landed the heaviest laker, a 25-inch, seven-pounder.
Doug Korhonen, skipper of the Hummer, weighed in five lake trout on Sunday, a typical catch for the day. On Saturday, he estimated his crew caught about three times that many fish, keeping seven. They caught some in excess of 25 inches that had to be released.
The Hammer crew caught Saturday's heaviest salmon, a three-pounder, while the Pride N' Joy had the top trout of all species that day, at around nine pounds.
The Hummer crew came in second on Friday in the Powderpuff ladies competition to the Wendy Sue, skippered by Mickey Backlund.
Star-Kissed was third in Powderpuff, followed by Namaycush, Julio Zarzycki, and the Howie Fish boat.
Species weighed and counted toward the total score were lake trout, steelhead (rainbow), brown trout, splake, chinook and coho salmon. There were no large chinooks caught, either.
