Ice fishing tournaments are a popular way for people to enjoy the outdoors in winter. (File photo/northeastNOW staff)

By Doug Lett

Ice fishing derbies popular

Ice fishing tournaments proving popular

Feb 7, 2023 | 8:44 AM

Ice fishing competitions are a popular winter outing for many in Saskatchewan and they keep growing.

The biggest, the Montreal Lake Walleye Derby, brings in some 2600 people from across western Canada.

But there are dozens of smaller ice fishing competitions around the province.

“I think it’s just simply the camaraderie and getting out and enjoying ice fishing,” said Jason Matity, with the website getfishing.ca. He added in a province where winter can approach six months, people are looking for a reason to get outdoors.

“Most of them end up with some kind of a prize and dinner type thing at the end. That’s an opportunity for people to get together, have a meal, see who won the day,” he said. “There’s often some really fun stories,” added Matity, whose website focuses on educational fishing videos that people can access even out on the ice.

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While the tournaments may be a good time for those involved, it has grown to be a small industry in itself.

The provincial definition of a competitive fishing event is where 25 or more people are competing for prizes based on fish that are caught.

“In a given year, we have roughly about 125 of these events that occur throughout the province,” said Murray Koob, Sport Fishery Biologist with Saskatchewan Environment. He said over half are ice fishing tournaments.

That may sound like a lot of pressure on fish populations but Koob explained the ice fishing events don’t have much impact.

For one, most are now catch-and-release.

“There’s very minimal impact with winter events,” said Koob. “You catch fewer fish, they’re in a confined area, like the Montreal Lake event, it’s pre-drilled holes in a confined area. You basically have the fish come to you…so you’re going to have fewer fish caught.”

He added Walleye tournaments are required to be catch-and-release.

While the $100,000 grand prize in the Montreal Lake Walleye Derby makes it the biggest ice fishing prize, there are other derbies that offer prizes in five figures and more that have smaller prizes.

“There’s lots of smaller ones all over the place,” said Matity. “A lot of it is for fun…often it’s local wildlife federations or communities….here’s a fun cool thing to do in the winter, but also we were able to get a few funds and a few sponsors and a few prizes together to do a derby.”

He said tournaments can also be a way for newcomers to the sport to pick up some skills and he thinks the trend to make them catch and release is good for the future of the sport.

“I think what it does is it sends the right message that you know, those fish, in particular those big fish, are pretty important for the ecosystem,” he said. “That’s not something you used to see years ago.”

The provincial government requires competitive fishing events to send in a tally when it’s over of how many fish were caught.

“How many participants, how many fish were caught, any kind of mortality or anything like that,” said Koob. For example, for last year’s Montreal Lake tournament, he said, there were about 165 walleye caught, and 25 Northern Pike and all were successfully released alive.

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doug.lett@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @DougLettSK