Fishing Derby
The 5th Annual Powers Lake Fishing Derby is tentatively set for June 6, 2020.
Saturday June 1, 2019 the Powers Lake Watershed Project held their 4th Annual Youth Fishing Derby on Powers Lake. Attached is a quote that I ended with last year “As we wrap up another year, the sun came out and turned into a nicer afternoon and to lead us into next year’s Youth Fishing Derby. See you again next year” and it did indeed lead us into a beautiful day this year. The weather I don’t think could be any more perfect. Temperatures averaged in the 60’s, clear skies, and just a slight breeze made the day perfect.
102 kids came out and enjoyed this beautiful day and fished for northern pike. Fishing was a little slower this year but there was still a good number of fish caught and plenty of stories of fish getting away close to shore and even on shore. During the 3 hours of fishing there was at least 42 fish caught.
Winners by age division are:
4 and Under: 5-8 years old: 9-12 years old: 13-17 years old:
1st Brayden Tarap 1st Chase Parslow 1st Landon Westerness 1st Larissa Klitzke
2nd Stella Thorlaksen 2nd Tyson Tarap 2nd Tayah Westerness 2nd Jaden Bullinger
3rd Emmit Garaas 3rd Kara Erickson 3rd Cody Rystedt
Overall Champion was Landon Westerness bringing in a whopping 12.0 pound Northern Pike. This is also the biggest fish to date during our 4 year run with the fishing derby.
This year there was fishing poles donated by Jake and Diane Douts for the first 3 fish that come in. It was a little slower start this year but the first 2 fish trickled in were Tyson Tarap and Adelyn Bullinger. Shortly afterwards Gabe Peterson brought in the 3rd fish to receive the 3rd fishing pole. With Wyatt Peach just barely missing out by less than a minute, but he didn’t go home empty handed as he was given a pair of mouth spreaders and hook remover to speed up his process for next year.
First fish Certificate will be given out to Bristol Thomas for her first official fish catch.
A northern pike cleaning demonstration was put on by Raymond Atwood with some onlookers watching a good way to fillet a northern pike and by removing the Y-bones and have it ready for dinner.
A huge Thank You goes out to NCC and Taryn and Courtney for providing a wonderful lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, cookies and water and to do the cooking.
Thank you goes out to all of the individual Volunteers and Powers Lake Civic Club for helping with the registration and serving lunch and other miscellaneous jobs that occurred during the day.
Registration gifts were donated by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.
Raffle prizes that included fishing poles, tackle boxes, lures, gift cards and miscellaneous other items were handed out, with every kid getting a prize. This couldn’t be done without our sponsors over the years. Sponsors include NCC (Northwest Communications Coop), Oasis Petroleum, Ackerman Estvold Engineering, SRS Crisafulli out of Glendive, MT, Powers Lake Gaming Funds, Scheels Sports, Powers Lake Volunteer Fire Department, Powers Lake Ambulance Department, ShopKo, Rob & Debbie Jensen, Robin Smith, Gene & Judy Hegstad, Cenex, Liberty State Bank, Griesbach Construction, John Grant, and RMH Heating, AC and Plumbing.
Donations and volunteers time will all help out the Powers Lake Watershed Project receive grant funds from the Outdoor Heritage Fund as matching funds for the Powers Lake Restoration Project.
Thank you to everyone that helped this day be a success and hope everyone had a great time as this couldn’t go on without all of your support. This included the volunteers, sponsors, and the kids. Pray for weather like this again next year and to have another successful Youth Fishing Derby. The tentative schedule for next year’s derby is Saturday June 6, 2020.