Waterfront prepares for tourney, cleanup

Events start May 4

Anglers and cleaners will swarm Lorain’s waterfront for the first weekend in May.

The city will host the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit Team Walleye Tournament on May 4 and 5.

That event overlaps in time and place with the annual Black River Clean-Up, scheduled May 5 and 6.

“We don’t anticipate any issues whatsoever,” said Tom Brown, executive director of the Lorain Port Authority, which is working with both events.

The MWC Team Walleye tournament will not be as big as last year’s Cabela’s National Team Championship, which had 251 teams of anglers visit Lorain.

Even so, it likely will draw more than 50 teams, said Jeff Kelm, Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit master of ceremonies.

An exact number was not available because registration was to close the afternoon of April 30.

Gone fishin’

For tournament watchers, the boats will gather both days in the Black River off Black River Landing. They will go out one at a time starting at 7 a.m. or at the first safe light, if there is bad weather or fog.

Each day, teams will return with their five biggest fish. Each fish must be at least 15 inches long.

“They can be as big as you can catch ‘em after that,” Kelm said.

The weigh-in starts at 3 p.m. both days. That event is free and open to the public.

Tournament organizers log the combined weights of the fish from both days.

Cabela’s and the Walleye Federation would love to see more than 60 pounds of fish to win a two-day event, Kelm said.

“That’s probably even a conservative estimate,” he said.

In April, the tournament was in the Detroit River in Michigan and a team bagged 47 pounds in a day, Kelm said.

The Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, New York and other states have quality walleye fisheries, he said.

But anglers there know Lake Erie is “a destination fishery,” Kelm said.

“It’s the dreamland; it’s the homeland for folks wanting to walleye fish in the United States,” he said.

In early May and based on the weather, the tournament could land in Lorain just in time for some large females to be ready to eat again after spawning, Kelm said.

“It’s going to depend on the weather,” Brown said. “I know when we had good weather last week, the charter captains had very good days.

“As long as the weather holds, I think we’re going to have some very good fishing.”

Black River Clean-Up

The walleye tournament will use Black River Wharf, the Port’s 14th Street boat launch, for walleye tournament

anglers.

That will displace one of the main sign-up stations for the Black River Clean-Up, scheduled 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., May 5 and 6.

The May 5 event will take walk-up registration at Lakeside Landing, 401 Lakeside Ave., which is by Lorain’s East Pier, also known as the Mile-Long Pier.

The other main sign-up table is at Cromwell Park, said event co-founder Stephanee Moore Koscho of the Lorain County Kayak & Paddle Sports Group, or LoCo ‘Yaks.

Cromwell Park is part of the land between Colorado Avenue and the Black River.

Volunteers going there can look for signs posted at the intersection of Colorado and Missouri avenues, which has the Discount Drug Mart and Marco’s Pizza stores there.

At Cromwell Park, a bus will transport volunteers back to Black River Wharf if they want to clean there.

The Black River Clean-Up welcomes people to participate by kayak and canoe, but paddlecraft should not launch at Black River Wharf.

Lorain County Metro Parks’ French Creek boat launch will be the start and stop area for paddlecraft this year.

The Black River Clean-Up has grown to attract hundreds of participants.

In its five years, the volunteers have removed 86.7 tons of trash and debris from the shores and waters of the Black River.

There will be free Tshirts for the first 200 participants and refillable water bottles for volunteers. Lunch is served to volunteers beginning at 2 p.m.

And May 6 is “the cleanup of the cleanup day,” when volunteers go around and pick up the bagged litter or items that people could not remove the day before, Koscho said.

Volunteers for that day should sign up online because the locations May 6 will depend on what participants find May 5, she said.

Then, the May 6 volunteers will get an email the night before explaining where to be the next day.

The cleanup will go rain or shine.

“We’re kind of like baseball; we’ll play until it gets really bad,” Koscho said. “But so far, the weather forecast looks decent, so I’m not worried.”