Prairie Sportsman

(calm instrumental music) - [Bret] Every tournament angler's unique, each favors a different style of fishing.

Some believe in weird superstitions, all prefer certain equipment.

Everyone's different, except for this tournament at Lake of the Woods, where aside from their desire to catch the biggest fish, each team has one thing in common that puts them all in the same boat.

(upbeat rock music) - What's happening down here on the shores of Lake of the Woods and Rainy River is we have the Ninth Annual David A. Andersen Memorial Walleye Shootout.

(upbeat rock music) - 155 teams.

(crowd applauds and cheers) - And it is the largest shootout we've ever had.

And as far as I know, we are the biggest walleye tournament in the state of Minnesota this year.

We started off doing, like a Warrior rally, is what they started as.

It was like our 12th annual rally.

And we did a few years in Devil's Lake and then we were gonna move it every couple years.

Well, we moved up, came up to Lake the Woods one year and had a great dealer meeting and a great event, bunch of people, and we're like, "Hey, what should we do with this?"

And my dad actually was the one that came up with the idea.

He was like, "Why don't we do a tournament, like a real tournament, and have an owner's tournament?"

(calm rock music) So we did that, and the first year, right before the event, if I remember right, it was, like, August 17th or something, the event, or 18th, somewhere about there.

Well, my father passed away on August 8th.

(calm rock music) Obviously, that was a huge hit to the company, huge hit to just everybody.

And Chuck called me and he's like, "We gotta cancel everything."

'Cause we had our dealer meeting scheduled and this and that.

I'm like, "No, we can't do that.

That's the last thing he'd want you to do is cancel this event."

Brett King, a great friend, great friend of the family, he actually was running Warrior at that time and reached out to Chuck and said, "We need to name this thing 'The David A. Andersen Memorial Shootout.'"

So in 2016, you know, roughly a few days after his passing, we named the tournament after him, and I think we had 38 boats that first year.

And to see what it's grown into today, it's hard to talk about 'cause it's amazing.

(calm rock music) - Kent asked me to come out to the Warrior Tournament and be a part of the event, and quickly kind of saw what was special about Warrior.

Truly, the people around the Warrior Boat family that make this a special event.

(upbeat rock music) - What makes it really special is we're a small Minnesota company.

So having all these boats come back to the great state of Minnesota, and then coming to one of the greatest fisheries there are, Lake the Woods, and it's a place that was very special to my father and it's a great place for everybody to get together.

(upbeat rock music) - Last year was a ton of fun and that's, you know, the main reason I'm back this year.

This is a great event.

One of my favorite weeks of summer.

You can't ask for a better place to fish, the Lake of the Woods.

Everybody's up here.

It's great to talk to everyone.

Been catching a pile of fish, and that's kind of what makes this event awesome.

(upbeat rock music) Pre-fishing's been up and down.

We did really good some days, bunch of those trophy 28, 29, some 30 inch fish, and then other days it was super windy and we were struggling to catch some decent fish.

So it's been all over the place.

The weather looks nice tomorrow though, finally again.

- Well, we're here because we bought our first Warrior last fall.

You know, we're just gonna try to cover as much ground and catch as many fish as quick as we can, really, you know?

We caught some nice fish in the river today, but we're gonna go out and fish the lake tomorrow.

- Stay married afterwards too.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

(Sherri laughs) There's guys that can really fish here, but you know, anybody can catch a couple of big fish each time they've been out, right?

You guys fish, you know?

I mean, sometimes just luck falls in your hands, you know?

- We'll be standing in the bow, casting at hopefully big walleyes with some forward facing and hopefully it pans out.

(music dwindles) (upbeat rock music) - So at the David A. Andersen Memorial Walleye Shootout, it's run by the "AIM Weekend Walleye Series."

Danny Fox comes up here, runs the event, and if you don't understand what the Catch, Record, Release, the CRR process is, you're gonna catch your fish, you unhook 'em, obviously, and you get a ruler.

That ruler, all those fish are gonna be measured the same, belly to belly, head in the left hand, you measure that fish, take a picture of it on the ruler, you pick that fish up, take a picture of the other side of the fish, that's the grip and grin they call it, or your hero shot, you release that fish back in the water.

So that fish is out of the water for merely 30 seconds, and he goes back in, he gets to go back with all his friends.

He doesn't have to get thrown in a live well, like most tournaments, and bounced around and drug across the stage, and loaded and unloaded.

So it's the most conservation-friendly system.

There's no better way to run a tournament, - A great day to be alive.

That's what they tell me anyways.

We've been here on site since 4:30 this morning.

I still can't believe, 155 boats in the water in an hour and a half.

(upbeat rock music) - And when you get out there in the morning at 7:00 AM and there's 150 some Warriors in line, that is the coolest part of this whole weekend.

(upbeat rock music) (engines rumble) - Here we go, boat number one!

Pat Kovatch and Bob Wagner!

(upbeat rock music) Mike Nelson, Jesse Longtime.

(upbeat rock music) Boat number one time.

One time champions out here.

Nate Gilkey and Dan Pfeifer!

- Oh boy!

(engine rumbles) Walleye.

Seriously.

- Mike Hanson and Jake Auldmen!

(engine rumbles) And rounding out in the hot top 155, it's Lance Bainville, Jacob West!

(engine rumbles) - [Kent] Well, it's a great day on Lake of the Woods.

Great day to be alive.

[Bret] There you go, man.

- 155 boats off to Lake of the Woods.

- [Bret] How's that feel?

- Feels pretty awesome.

It's actually, to be honest with you, it's a really humbling experience.

It's pretty awesome to see all these boats go out there.

Everybody's got something common and together.

It really is truly another family.

And this whole event means a lot to me.

It means a lot to Chuck.

It means a lot to everybody involved with Warrior Boats, and I hope it means a lot to everybody that comes.

And all those that can't make it, hopefully they can make it here someday and experience this 'cause it is breathtaking to see what you see.

- [Brett] What do you think your dad would say seeing that?

- Oh.

(laughs) (engine rumbles) - I can't even talk.

- [Bret] Yeah.

- Yeah.

Pretty special.

(gentle instrumental music) It's not one person that makes this thing happen.

It's everyone, you know?

From the guys in the shop that build these things, because those guys take pride.

So I mean, from them, where it starts, to the dealers that sell 'em, to the customers that buy 'em, everybody has a love and a passion for the sport.

And then what's better, you get to come up to Lake of the Woods, use that product, and get together with everybody, go to Wigwam Resort and hang out with Mark and Tina, and they put on a good feed tonight.

Tons of prizes.

It's just awesome.

(calm upbeat instrumental music) Yes, everybody wants to win, but it's much more than who takes first place.

You can be out on the water and you could have 15 boats around and somebody could catch a 30 incher and all 15 boats, or other 14 boats, are gonna cheer that team on because they're all happy to see somebody have fun and catch fish.

Like, I feel if you're not that person and you're up here, you probably won't be back.

You know?

So everybody's here helping people.

People have issues or people have this or somebody that came from a different state that didn't know how to catch a fish here, they'll give them baits, they'll take them, show 'em way points.

Like, everybody's like, "Come on out.

We wanna catch fish."

That's what this event's about.

- That's the fun part about it is it brings a big group of people together.

It's all based around the Warrior Boat stuff.

So personally, I'm not a Warrior boat owner, but I get to fish with my really good friend Todd Zemke.

He's on the Warrior team, travels the country, fishing outta that Warrior, and we get to come together and fish together, and it's a really good time.

- We have teams from all over the upper Midwest.

I know we have teams from Michigan, we've had teams from Ohio, we have teams come down from Canada, all the way out to Montana, Nebraska.

Anywhere a Warrior's sold, I think we have people coming.

Actually, I seen one coming from Colorado today.

(upbeat instrumental music) When they come in at the end of the day, they have all their pictures.

You can score as many fish.

There's no slot you have to follow, no limits.

You check your five biggest 'cause you don't keep any.

You can't put a fish in the live well during the day today.

So you'll check your five biggest fish.

It's got a length to weight conversion chart and you do your conversion, you hand it over to Denny and the gals, they'll take it, they'll go through the SD card that they supplied you, and make sure all the pictures are good, and make sure everything matches up with your scorecard, and away you go.

And then, we do our awards at seven o'clock.

(upbeat instrumental music) - So there it is.

Thank you, everybody, for being patient.

We had a ton of fish to go through.

Let's start this off by giving a quick round of applause, to Wigwam for that fish fry and everything they do.

(crowd cheers) Let's just say this, there was more than one the record broke today.

Not only number of boats, but winning weight.

- This is the body of water in Minnesota that is the what-if factor.

Every time I've been up here, I've been shocked at what happens.

It's either your day is gonna be incredible at any cast or any trolling pass that you're gonna make.

You could catch the biggest walleye of your life.

You could catch multiple, the biggest bag you've ever caught.

- Going up 41.30 pounds, Larry and Chuck Kortuem.

(crowd cheers) - Traveling the country, you can see some of those fisheries like Erie and Green Bay that produce these monster bags and Lake of the Woods is right in there with them, if not better than them.

- With one team remaining.

- I've been wanting to fish it for three, four years ago.

Obviously, we didn't have Warriors at the time.

He finally bought one.

And we've wanted to do it for the past three years together, just didn't work out.

This year, kind of everything laid out with another tournament that's next weekend, and we just said, "Let's do it!"

- [Kent] They started of at 27 and a quarter.

- We got that, said, "All right, we at least got one.

All we need is five."

And we got that literally right away.

- [Kent] Then, they got a monster.

31 and three quarter for 13.56 pounds.

- A little while later, you know, we got some smaller ones mixed in there, and we literally looked at this one big fish for five, 10 minutes and threw everything at it and it just would not bite.

It would chase, and finally, I just told him, "Hey, put a bobber and a leech down."

Put the bobber, leech, dropped it right on his head and that bobber went down, and he set the hook on that (indistinct) rod and just keeled over.

And it was a 10 minute fight, easily.

- Oh, it took forever to get that fish in.

- But after that, we got that one in.

We're like, "All right, three more."

- They backed that one up with a 30 and a half.

- I have never gotten a fish over 30.

Something I've wanted for years, and I've come close.

And the next big one on our third big fish was 30 and a half.

I finally got that one.

- [Kent] They thought that one was a little small, so they put another 31 incher the card.

- And then, a little while later, got a 31.

- [Kent] And they finished out their day with a 28 and a quarter for 935.

- He wanted to come in early and I was like, "No."

(laughs) We were gonna stick it out.

And then, I think at, like, 2:30 I got a 28 and a quarter.

- Quarter.

- And we're like, "Let's just clean up the boat.

Take it easy."

I mean- - Let's just make the long nice ride in.

If we win, we win.

If we don't, we don't.

- Yeah.

- We had a great day.

- Yeah, - [Kent] For a record setting week of 55.76 pounds.

(crowd cheers) (crowd applauds) - I looked at it, was like, "How can you really top that?"

I don't think I ever will.

It was an amazing day.

It was wild.

I mean, fishing with my best friend.

It was fun.

(upbeat instrumental music) - It's a super awesome event.

Not just being part of the Warrior family, but this whole weekend, this whole week really, whether it's talking to dealers, talking to some of the owners, giving test rides in the boat, it's truly a unique experience you don't see with other boat brands.

- It's probably the greatest tournament I've ever been part of.

Everybody's so nice, friendly, everybody says, "Hi."

I mean, the takeoff in the morning, everybody's in a line and it's a fun day.

It's a tournament, yes, but it's not your crazy go-go-go tournament.

I mean, everybody took their time, everybody was nice to everybody, nobody cutting anybody off, and it was just, "Go out there and go fishing."

- That's what this event's about is the fellowship, the friendship, the family.

(upbeat instrumental music)