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Posts: 32930
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | The weather was absolutely fantastic this morning but the fish unwilling to cooperate for the 16 boat field of contestants. When the tournament ended at 1 PM, there was only 1 fish registered for today, a 34.5" off of Boom Lake.
Mike Roberts and Jason Long took home the win and a check for $1500. Dave Jonesi and Troy Adler took home second place honors and a check for $800.
This was a great event for a great cause. The anglers reached into their wallets last night at the raffle, raising $1655 for the American Diabetes Association. I had a very good time fishing with Slamr and enjoyed the company of all the Muskie fishermen and women the banquet last night. A huge thanks to Nelson's and all the volunteers for all the hard work!
There actually was quite a bit of action described by all the anglers, for us all on suckers. We lost three yesterday for some unknown reason, but it sure was cool watching those fish circle the sucker, mess around looking it over, then suddenly decide to just swim up and eat the thing. We will be fishing this event next year!
Congratulations to the top teams!
Here's a link to the photos from the Tournament, Banquet, and Awards Ceremony:
http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/photos/photo-thumbnails.asp?a...
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | I would like to thank Chuck and Kristy for a well done tournament, I had a great time being a judge, even though I did not get to register a fish! Just being out on the water was a great feeling and a good break from the every day college life. If anyone is looking at fishing this tournament, I would highly suggest it! The prizes were awesome, the people were great and just getting the opportunity for a fall pig! Plus, all the money is donated to a great cause! So I would like to thank everyone who set this up, it was truly Awesome. I will be back next year. |
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Posts: 1938
Location: Black Creek, WI | Yah... Merckid summed it up well. Chuck and Kristy are fantasic hosts and really put together an outstanding event. The format is really a lot of fun. Spreading the boats out on several different lakes is a great concept to reduce congestion and makes for a very enjoyable day of "fishing". Not knowing the lake you will fish until the night before is really cool too, and is probably what I like most about the unique format. No need to prefish, just show up and have fun with the cards you are dealt. I have never been to Lake Julia before, and we had a blast. Besides the fishing, the banquet and raffle is amazing. The Nelson's really pulled together an amazing list of prizes for the raffle and the incredible funds raised for the American Diabetes Association just goes to show how much time and effort Chuck and Kristy put into this. Hat's off to the Nelson's and I look forward to fishing it again in 2006.
jlong |
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Posts: 941
Location: Freedom, WI | Like the 2 preveious posts, it was a good time and I will be back. Not knowing the lakes was kind of cool, also I was never on most of the lakes on the list. The fellow contestants that where there helped me out enough to get me started and then it was just get out and fish!
The amount of raffle prizes Kristy and Chuck had there saturday night was amazing. For those of you not there you missed a good time. |
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Posts: 578
Location: Sheboygan Falls, WI | Can't post much right now as I can hardly keep my eyes open. It has been a LONG, but VERY FUN weekend. I want to thank Steve and Andrew for doing such a FANTASTIC job covering the tournament. Hat's off to both of you. You both are more than generous with your time and resources.
Also, thanks to Steve, TJ, Jason and Roger for the kind words. Kristy put in many hours while running the store and also on her time off. It was great to see 32 other musky anglers enjoying themselves while trying for a few bucks.
One team, we will just call them "Team Kill Switch", said that they usually fish Pelican, but never got to the Rhinelander area. Now, they found a new area to come to that is just 20 minutes further nort'. I knew that Jason nor Roger had ever been on Julia. I think that this lake opened some eyes. All I will say is that it is on the list of lakes for a reason.
Thanks again to ALL tournament anglers, sponsors and people/companies that donated items. A whole separate post will go up with the total list of the sponsors and people/companies that came through in such a huge way.
All anglers, judges and guests helped in raising the $1,655 for the American Diabetes Association. Without these people generosity at the banquet, we would have never come close to raising what we did; thanks again guys and ladies.
Speaking of ladies, it was great to see 2 ladies fishing the tournament.
Once again, thanks to all for the kind words and support of the tournament. Hopefully it grows bigger and better year after year; up to 60 boats before a waiting list is started of course.
ALSO, OCTOBER 20,21 & 22 OF 2006 ARE THE DATES FOR THE NEXT ONE; 2ND ANNUAL OCTOBER "MUSKY" FEST. You can contact Kristy at 715-369-1900 for an entry to next years tournament. Once again, there will be a $100 early entry drawing.
Thanks again,
Chuck |
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Posts: 1168
| Thanks again to Chuck and Kristy for such a fun weekend. I've judged other tourneys before and for a first year event this one was one of the best that I've ever been part of. Eventhough MercKid and I were never called for a fish it was just a couple of awesome days to be out on the water. Everyone who was a part of it from organizing to the participants to the folks who talked it up really did a nice job making this a success. For anyone who wasn't there you really missed out on an outstanding weekend so mark the calendars for next year.
Congrats to Mike and Jason and also Dave and Troy for their fish. Also to everyone else for such a good weekend. I was very impressed with the courteousness of everyone who was on the water. Just a fun laid back competition where no one was caught up in the prizes for fish but rather knew the cause this event was benefitting.
After talking with a few guys who were not up in Rhinelander this weekend and telling them about just the raffle prizes there are some who are kicking themselves. Just an awesome job with everything and lets hope this event can grow in both fun and the money raised for the American Diabetes Association.
Thanks a ton guys,
Bob Stuewer
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Posts: 2089
| A big congrats to all who attended this event.It's on my calendar for next year already.Talked to a few folks who had nothing but great things to say.Kudos to Chuck and Kristy for all the effort to get the weekend off the ground.Way to go Dave and Troy!Not a bad week of fishin' for the clan. Steve |
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| HI, I agree this was one heck of an event. The only thing I want to add is hats off to Chuck and Kristi for stepping up to the plate and FINALLY running a tournament in the Rhinelander area with judge boats! Judge boats mean a lot to the resource. No fish transported, no fish taken into posession, no gray areas with the daily bag limit, nobody having to "fish" for pike after catching a musky.
WAY TO GO! Hopefully all other Rhinelander tournaments will now step up to the plate and go with Judge boats. It can be done! God bless. |
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Posts: 714
Location: Rhinelander, WI | I’ll echo what was already said, the tourney was excellently run. Chuck and Kristy put in lots of work and time and it showed. The raffle prizes where awesome and a lot of people walked away with some pretty cool stuff.
Jason and I waited right to the last minute to make our decision on fishing. We normally take this weekend in October and do a trophy musky hunt. We weren’t sure we wanted to give that up to fish a tourney. However with the water temps where they were, right in the middle of turnover on or favorite trophy lakes, the shallower lakes we would want to fish where tourney waters. We thought it would be pretty stupid to fish those waters and not be in the tourney, especially considering it was for a good cause.
On Friday morning we stopped by Nelson’s Choice and registered and then went to our traditional trophy waters and saw three slow follows all day, water ranging from 56.5 to 59.
On Saturday on a much smaller shallower lake the temps ranged from 52.5 to 54. In the first hour we had two hot follows on blades and one interested sucker stalker. Two of those fish could have been 25 pound class fish. We where pumped up all day after that. We ended up loosing one fish (on a Triple D), seeing 6 others and catching the one fish that picked up our decoy sucker. 3 of those fish where in the mid 40” class.
On Sunday action was a little slower, J had a fish boil on a glide bait on his second cast and we had the sucker grabbed about 30 minutes later. We have never had 100% quick strike, hook up ratio, on a fall weekend trip. As Jason said “we picked a good weekend to perfect our sucker rigging technique”, I’ll add or we where just LUCKLY. Right at the end with 15 minutes left, J tricked another one into making a try for his DDD, it missed three time before it swam off and was another mid 40 incher. For us the big fish showed up on artificial and the small one ate the suckers, who would have thougt. I know that wasn't the case for others as one team fought and broken heartedly ended up loosing a solid 50" class fish that took a sucker, right as time ran out.
It was a great weekend the water temps and weather kept the numbers of fish down, but with the tourney scheduled to be held the third weekend in October every year there will be years like this and there will be years when the big girls are on fire. This is traditionally the weekend J and I fish and that is what we have seen over the last couple of years. We have both talked and I am afraid we will now be fishing this tourney every October, it was just to much fun. And the lakes Chuck and Kristy are picking are great fall lakes to boot.
Thanks to everyone Chuck, Kristy, all the judges and all the sponsors. We had a great time.
Nail A Pig!
Mike
Edited by MRoberts 10/17/2005 8:56 AM
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Posts: 1245
Location: Madtown, WI | Congrats guys on your win! Was a tough weekend up north for sure...little breezy on Sat!!
We might have to consider fishing the tourney next year!
Cory |
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Posts: 578
Location: Sheboygan Falls, WI | Thanks again to everyone for all of the kind words. I guess all of the hard work did pay off in a big way. The big thing was to make sure that everyone had a good time. We have not heard anything negative about the tournament from the participants, but have had some suggestions which Kristy and I have discussed already and are going to be putting into effect for next year. Having you participants that attended the awards ceremony fill out the grading sheet for the tournament was a huge help. We greatly appreciated all of the in-put that people had. A few of the comments we have definitely decided against as we want this to be a special tournament unlike any other in the north woods. Other ideas we will consider. It will be interesting to see how many tournaments start to take on a little bit of this format that we have.
We will be extending the hours on Sunday to 2PM instead of 1PM. The 30 seconds between boats at the take off will stay in effect (sorry JLong, can't guarantee you #1 every tournament  ). Suckers will continue to be allowed. The random draw of the lakes on Friday and Saturday nights will continue as well. The Haven will still be the official location for everything starting on Friday. We will keep the event limited to 60 boats. We will keep the entry fee at $150 as long as we possibly can. Everyone will continue to have a great time; that is our goal anyway.
We had an absolutely FANTASTIC group of guys and ladies fishing the tournament this year. We hope that the trend of attracting courteous and trustworthy anglers continues.
Sincerely,
Chuck
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Posts: 32930
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I'm already looking forward to this next year. I hope at least 60 boats sign up! If Sue and I still own the Hideout, there will be a place for at least two teams to stay. |
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Posts: 32930
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | By the way, here's a link to all the event photos:
http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/photos/photo-thumbnails.asp?a... |
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Posts: 578
Location: Sheboygan Falls, WI | Hey Steve,
Kristy has begun working on next years tourney already!!! Laying out what she would need major sponsors for and the whole works. She is playing with some ideas on a logo for the tournament and everything. It would not surprise me to see large banners outside next year welcoming anglers to the tourney, there will definitely be posters advertising the tournament and the whole works. Getting the posters done is the big reason why she needs to get her big sponsors locked in.
More good ideas were suggested today that she is going to implement on the basic handling of the tournament. It is not going to affect the anglers at all as far as fishing goes, it will actually help them in the long run. She has really taken the bull by the horns and is running with it.
The 2nd Annual October "Musky" Fest looks to be bigger and better. It will continue to be improved year after year. If a tournament thinks that they can not do any better, then they better stop having the tournament. There is always something a little extra that can be done or changed to make it even better.
Good Fishing,
Chuck |
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Posts: 578
Location: Sheboygan Falls, WI | Our "Thank You" post is now up. Please support as many of the sponsors and donators as you possibly can. They are the ones that made this tournament successful. When you do support them, thank them for doing such an unselfish thing for a great cause.
Chuck |
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