Waves interfere with bass tournament

Due to poor weather conditions on Lake Erie Saturday, the Berkley B1 Championship Tour in Port Colborne turned into a oneday event.

Waves on the lake were about three metres high Saturday.

Berkley B1 director of operations Vickie Schanck said the organization didn’t want to send the anglers out in those conditions.

Ben Woo, president and founder of Berkley B1, said the waves Sunday were between 1.5 and 2.4 metres high. But the event proceeded with 140 anglers trying to catch their five-limit small mouth bass to win the competition.

Sunday, Woo said some of the anglers called back to shore to forfeit. The waves and wind in certain areas of the lake were causing problems. Woo said anglers who headed towards the Niagara River were having a difficult time coming back to Port Colborne. The anglers wouldn’t make it back by the 3:15 p.m. weigh-in, so they chose to drop out. Anglers set out at 7 a.m.

“It was much calmer earlier in the morning, but the waves have picked up from the south west this afternoon. It comes down to the decisions of what the anglers made in the morning,” Woo said Sunday at H.H. Knoll Lakeview Park, from where the event was being held.

Anglers who continued the competition would weigh-in their catch in hopes of winning a prize. The grand prize Sunday was a Ranger Boat package worth $36,000.

Besides the challenge of the wind and waves, anglers weren’t allowed to use live bait. Woo said it can be difficult to catch fish because small mouth bass have a great deal of food to choose from in Lake Erie. Small mouth bass feed on the goby population.

Woo said he was feeling pretty good Sunday. He said H.H. Knoll Lakeview Park is one of the most “gorgeous” sites to host the tournament. Despite the weather interference, Woo said he’d host the tournament in Port Colborne again and added the city was extremely supportive.

“The weather is going to be an issue anywhere we go, so I mean it is what it is,” he said.