The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Catch or go home for fishing tourney
Top 25 continue for grand prize
After two days plying the waters of Lake Erie, it was catch big ones or go home for the teams in the Cabela’s National Team Championship walleye tournament.
The top 25 teams will advance to eight hours of fishing on June 10 in hopes of claiming cash and prizes at the end of the tournament.
The tournament continues at 7 a.m. June 10 and weigh-in starts at 3 p.m. at Black River Landing in Lorain. The top team will take home a prize package including $25,000 in cash and a Ranger boat.
A number of Ohio teams are among the top 25, including local anglers: Brandon Baker of Avon Lake and Cole Carlson of Avon, ranked ninth after two days; Jason Kopf of Avon Lake and Rodger Riggs of Cleveland, ranked 16th; and Tim Johnson an Jason Zsebik of Vermilion,
ranked 20th.
The anglers went out on June 8 and 9, each day hoping to bring back the five heaviest fish they could catch.
The ones going home had fun even if they did not hook the lunkers they hoped for in Lorain.
Lake Erie is home to schools of young walleye that many of the tournament anglers caught, said Parma Heights angler Gary Zart. He fished with his friend Joe Nadzam of North Royalton.
“They’re like piranha,” he said about the younger walleye. “They’re eating before the big ones even think about eating, because they’re so aggressive. It was nice to catch a couple big ones today.”
Zart also is captain of Blue Dolphin Charters and trailers his boat to launch out of Lake Erie cities including Lorain.
The pair had 33 pounds, 12 ounces of fish on June 8, including a walleye almost 11 pounds. But the day before, they hauled in 18-inchers, relative lightweights for the contest, Zart said.
They bagged 10 fish for a total of 46 pounds, four ounces, good for 65th place in the field of 251 teams that won tournament berths.
The time on the water is about fishing, but for at least a few teams it also was about fun and family.
Devin Stalling, 16, of Kenton, was among the youngest anglers on the water. He fished with his father, John Stalling.
The elder Stalling is a co-founder of the Scott Kuhn Memorial Tournament, held on Indian Lake and started to raise money for the family of Scott Kuhn, Stalling’s best friend who died in a car accident in October 2004.
The father-son pair fish Lake Erie a dozen times a year and for the National Team Championship, they spent nine days fishing from the Lake Erie Islands to Cleveland.
They had five walleye weighing 23 pounds, 13 ounces, better than the first day catching three fish weighing 12 pounds.
“Tell me, who caught that biggest fish in there?” said Tournament Director Robert Cartlidge.
“I did,” Devin Stalling said as he and his father were on the weigh-in stage.
“Who’s the better fisherman?” Cartlidge asked.
“Probably him,” Devin Stalling said.
“At least he’s truthful too. Raised him right,” Cartlidge said.
They placed 137th among the teams.
“We just went looking for fish today and it panned out,” John Stalling said.
Sisters Theresa Meade of Fox Lake, Ill., and Janice DeWaal of Lake Villa, Ill., said frequently they are the only all-female team in fishing tournaments.
They spent two weeks in northern Ohio, their first time fishing out of Lorain. The first five days were a fishing vacation with their husbands.
Then came the serious scouting, then the tournament.
Over two days, the sisters bagged 10 fish weighing
a total of 21 pounds, four ounces, placing 208th in the contest. They kept a few walleye for the cooler.
“We got a lot of fish,” Meade said. “We got at least 40 keepers.”
“And we had fun out there,” DeWall said.
“We had a lot of fun, we really did,” Meade said.
They have run children’s fishing tournaments and placed eighth among 270 boats in the Cabela’s National Team Championship in Mille Lacs Lake, Minn.
Most importantly, the sisters described their enjoyment spending time together. DeWall, a grandmother, is a breast cancer survivor and Meade, now a great-grandmother, survived a bad case of Lyme disease.
“We’re not quitters. We just want to go, go, go,” Meade said.
Angler William Gaines of Plymouth, Ind., fished with teammate Michael Eberly of South Bend, Ind. They finished 235th with five walleye weighing nine pounds, four ounces.
Back on shore, on June 8, he used the weigh-in stage to propose to another partner: new fiancée Jodie Leasure. She said yes.
“I just had to catch some fish to walk the stage,” said Gaines, who is retired from the Army.
“Stunned. I was stunned,” Leasure said. “I knew he was going to be proposing soon but I had no idea it would be this weekend at this event.”
The two said they met through mutual friends and grew closer through mutual interests, including fishing. They plan to fish some future tournaments together, and Gaines noted first walleye Leasure ever caught was an 11-pound, four-ounce whopper.