Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all traditional organized walleye tournaments, such as the LEWT, MWC, and NWT, in the near future have been canceled. On April 4th, Jason Fischer, tournament director of the LEWT, organized a ‘social distancing’ tournament among a group of elite walleye fisherman in the Lake Erie community. The tournament was done in a unique, but possibly ‘way of the future format’, through the Fish Donkey App. The rules were simple… Launch from and fish wherever you want on Lake Erie, lines in the water 7am-4pm, then everything from live well inspection to measuring fish is done via photo and video submissions to the app. Adding to the thrill of just getting to fish a tournament, anglers were able to see and monitor the live leader board throughout the day and constantly know where they stood throughout the day. It had me thinking about this being a way of the future for tournament fishing? Jason literally named the tournament ‘Spare Change’ and had an entrance fee of $60, $40 for the best 5 stringer of fish in length, and $20 for the biggest overall fish. The app worked flawlessly, and is very intuitive.
As for the tournament, whether it’s an National Walleye Tour or group of friends fishing for lunch money in a tournament literally called ‘Spare Change’, it’s the same drive, same thrill, same desire to win, same love of the game. In a time of so much bad news, uncertainty of the future, our health, and our jobs; I needed this; I think we all needed this.
It was a day to forget about all that and fish with my 2 brothers. We started off catching good numbers of fish, but not getting on the right ones until early afternoon. Once we did on a small pod of good ones, we put it too them and ended up with 5 fish totalling 149.75”, just a smidge shy of a 30” average! Wow, a dream day of walleye fishing on the greatest walleye fishery on the planet! We just edged my good buddy and kid walleye prodigy Tyler Berthold and his crew for the win. They put the pressure on with 148.5”! A lot of other great sticks were right there to the wire for the thriller as well. Our 32” kicker won big fish by a 1/4” over Lason Clum and his crew.
The greatest epiphany of the day was when I realized my brother, Greg Buddie, who fished his first tournament of his career, joined elite company of one select few walleye anglers who have made more money fishing walleye tournaments than they have spent on walleye fishing! Korey Sprengel and John Hoyer watch out for this guy… 😂. I hope we can all do this again soon!
