Fall Mack Days concludes, tagged fish elude anglers
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FLATHEAD LAKE – A total of 14,066 lake trout have been entered so far in the 2020 Fall Mack Days fishing event sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
Mack Days are a management tool used by fisheries managers to reduce the number of non-native lake trout in Flathead Lake in an effort to increase populations of native bull trout and Westslope cutthroat trout. Up to $200,000 in cash and prizes was awarded at the conclusion of the event, which was Nov. 15.
Winter weather blew in over the nine-week event with raging winds, cold temperatures and snow.
The total Monday through Thursday fishing catch was 3,572, and the Friday to Sunday total was 10,494. Hard-core anglers were out, even with the harsh conditions. Friday’s total was 205 lake trout, Saturday had 354 and Sunday saw a hard-caught 33 entries. Anglers deal with frozen reels, lines and fingers – making it difficult to catch lake trout.
Sunday was the third and last day of the heaviest bucket of fish competition. Six anglers were out on the water trying to catch four fish to put in a bucket. The heaviest bucket went to Mike Benson with a 14 pound bucket of fish. Second place went to Larry Ashwell with 11.55 pounds and third went to Terry Krogstad and Julie Perkins with 9.95. Fourth went to Steve Benson with 8.9 pounds.
The overall winner of the three-day bucket competition went to Rick Skates, of Polson, who turned in a first-place bucket with 18.35 pounds on Sept. 18 and a third-place bucket with 20.6 pounds on Oct 10. Second place goes to Terry Krogstad and Julie Perkins, of Kalispell, who were in second with 17.8 pounds on Sept. 18 and third on Nov. 8 with 9.95 pounds.
One $10,000, three $5,000 and five $1,000 tagged lake trout have eluded anglers for nine weeks. There were also over 9,000 fish with values from $500 to $100. In the past, anglers who have caught only one lake trout or very few have landed one of these sought-after tagged fish. Check out www.mackdays.com for information or telephone 406-270-3386.
