A field containing top fishermen familiar with the walleye waters of Lake Sakakawea had trouble catching keepers during day one of the annual Garrison Fall Walleye Classic. The Classic, boasting a guaranteed top prize of $15,000, got under way Friday morning out of Fort Stevenson State Park with frost covering the courtesy dock.

“I like it when it’s like that because then, when you catch a nice fish, you warm up in a hurry,” said Brian Merkel of Minot. “It reminded me of October fishing in Canada.”

This year’s field was down to just 52 teams, about 20 fewer than a year ago. High gasoline prices and diminished fishing success on Lake Sakakawea this summer likely contributed to the smaller field of fishermen.

A pair of Minot fishermen, Jackie Trail and Merkel, took the lead after day one with a total weight of 12.9 pounds with a five fish limit. The weight surprised many of the tournament fishermen because of the lack of big walleyes yielded up by Lake Sakakawea this summer.

“The fish are running small, the same as last year,” said Merkel following the weigh-in at Garrison’s City Park. “We had small fish during pre-fishing, so we just went to where we caught our biggest fish and there was four of them sitting there today. That helped.”

Many of the area’s best fishermen slowly walked up the steps at the weigh-in stage, carrying what they knew to be a sub-par catch by tourney standards. Only 10 teams managed a total catch over 7 pounds. Several teams weighed in limits of five walleyes that scarcely topped 5 pounds on the digital scale.

One exception was the whopper walleye caught by the Minot fishing tandem of Scott Gillespie and Todd Rosemore. On a day where a 3-pound walleye was a rarity, the Minot duo had one whopper that tipped the scale at 6.7 pounds. It was easily the biggest walleye netted on day one. In fact, only two other walleyes topped the 4-pound mark.

“It was extremely slow today. We just found one big one,” remarked Gillespie with a smile while confessing that teammate Rosemore actually hooked the prize fish. “At least it’ll give us a chance to make some money.”

The tourney pays a big fish bonus for each of the two days of fishing and an additional $500 for the biggest overall walleye in the tournament. The teams were scheduled to hit the waves again at 8 a.m. today.

Many of the fishermen watching the Friday afternoon weigh-in were chatting about how tough the fishing has been on Lake Sakakawea. Another subject was the apparent lack of bigger fish that are usually pulled from Sakakawea and the lack of any concentrations of fish.

“The fish are scattered,” said Merkel. “Usually you catch one and it’s time to move or you’ll just catch 12 or 13 inchers. The fish came anywhere from 25 to 34 feet of water. The shallow fish that we did find didn’t want to bite.”

Rounding out the top five behind Trail and Merkel were: Ralph and Robert Johnson, Minot, 9 pounds; Rosemore and Gillespie, 8.9 pounds; Larry Zimmerman of Napoleon, and Dennis Andruski, Grand Forks, 8.35 pounds; and Joe Lundquist, Maple Grove, Minn., and Rick Schuster, Zimmerman, Minn., 8.2 pounds.
http://www.minotdailynews.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=14399

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