District anglers shine on Lake Michigan

FORT FRANCES—The Sturgeon Bay Open bass tournament has grown from strictly a local event to one that draws anglers from throughout the United States and Canada.
And the Canadians who ventured into Wisconsin for the May 17-18 tournament picked up much of the hardware.

Bill Godin, owner of Lake Despair Lodge north of Devlin, and partner Mike Salvador finished in first place with a combined two-day weight of 56.77 pounds—claiming the top prize of a brand new Ranger Z-19 Tournament Series boat with a Mercury 225 Pro XS motor plus $10,000 in cash.
“We went a week ahead and did some pre-fishing, and just kept catching fish every day,” Godin said in a telephone interview from his lodge. “We originally were hoping for a top 10 finish, but we kept getting big fish so we knew we’d be close.
“We were worried by a couple of teams, but we chose to target deeper fish at seven or eight feet when most were fishing the shallow bedding at two or three feet,” he noted.
Godin certainly is used to being at or near the top of the podium, having placed first in the Emo Walleye Classic last year with Ralph Galusha. He enters eight or nine tournaments a year, and will be back to defend his EWC title on May 30-31.
“The water [on the river] will be higher than last year so it’ll definitely take a different strategy to win it again,” Godin remarked.
Godin also will take his act once again to the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship in July, where he’s had a second-, third-, and sixth-place finish over the years though the top prize has eluded him so far.
Meanwhile, Norm and Dave Lindsay from Sioux Narrows finished an impressive fifth in the field of 200 teams, which scored them a nice consolation prize of $4,000.
Jeff Gustafson of Kenora and his partner, Dave Bennett, rounded out the Canadian contingent among the top 10 with a solid eighth-place finish—good for $1,900.
“There’s 80 miles of shoreline and all these fish are coming into this area to spawn soon,” Gustafson said while explaining the layout of the tournament at Sturgeon Bay.
“We caught around 100 fish a day so it’s a pretty amazing place at this time of year,” he added. “It’s mostly shallow sand flats, so the key is finding patches of rock or edges of sand where there’s some deeper water.”
The Lindsays were the first Canadian team to take their act south for the event 12 years ago and have been going back ever since.
They finished in the top three twice prior, so their fifth-place finish this time around was somewhat expected. The pair also reeled in one of the biggest fish of the tournament at 6.27 pounds.
“That was a really unbelievable catch,” Norm Lindsay said. “The worst thing is we had this new camcorder and managed to not get a picture of it, so we are hoping someone else can send us one.”
All in all, the local contingent had quite the showing at Sturgeon Bay—so much so that they may not be welcomed back next year.
“Yeah, they were saying no Canadians allowed next year,” Godin said with a laugh. “We had a great weekend out there, that’s for sure.”
(Fort Frances Times)