Young angler scores big at Mack Days

Youth angler Hayden Hall and his dad Brian of Missoula struggled to catch fish on Saturday, losing several as they were coming up from the depths of Flathead Lake. But at the end of the day they had one fish that Hayden managed to reel in all the way to the boat. Sure enough, it was a tagged lake trout worth $500. It no longer mattered that it was the only fish that had landed in the boat. Nice ending to a hard day of fishing.

Over the first three weeks of spring Mack Days anglers have turned in a total of 13,694 lake trout. The third weekend total was 2,366, which is the lowest weekend total so far in this event. On Friday there were 1055 lake trout entered followed by 840 on Saturday. Cold, windy conditions drove down numbers to 471 on Sunday, as many anglers decided to leave the water and call it an early day.

The Mack Days fishing tournament is sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and offers up to $225,000 in cash and prizes. Designed to boost the native bull and cutthroat trout populations in Flathead Lake by reducing the number of the non-native lake trout, the event is sanctioned by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Leading the hard working lady angler category is Julie Woolley of Manteca, California. In second is Florence angler Julie Vacca with 108 entries. In third place is Brandy Hilde of Whitefish with 101, followed by Janine Kowalski of Florence with 46 and Debbie Amdahl of Kalispell with 41.

Tyler Varga of Kalispell has a large lead in the 13-17 age group with 208 entries. Jack Paul of Kalispell follows him with 65. Leah Banyai of Kalispell is third with 44. Dylan Hodgson of Kalispell is fourth with 17 and Abby Hodgson has 16 for fifth place.

Matt Guckenberg Jr. of Kalispell has 50 in the age 12 and younger group, followed by Rylan Cook of Butte with 33. In third place is Kayne Kirwan of Polson with 12. Logan Lang from Kalispell is fourth with 8 and Wyatt Thompson from Bigfork has 4.

Michael Benson of Lonepine came in first in the Top Ten Angler Category with catches of 40, 45 and 13 for the weekend, bringing his total to 556. Felix Gauci of Stevensville moved into second with his total of 511, including weekend catches of 64, 21, and 24. Scott Bombard is in third after having triple 14 days. Sam Cusker of Whitefish is fourth with 487. Steven Benson of Four Lakes, Wash., is fifth with 456. Ryan Shima of Kalispell moved to sixth with 419. Danner Shima is seventh with 417. In eighth place is Larry Karper of Florence with 386. Jason Mahlen of Kalispell is ninth with 366, and in 10th is David McDaniel of Polson with 336.

Larry Karper of Florence continues to lead the 70 and older category with 386 fish. Bob Christensen is second with 167. Gary Perleberg of Bigfork is third with 95. Bernd Albrecht of Polson is fourth with 46, and Jim Hoover of Whitefish is fifth with 30.

The heaviest bucket of fish went to Ted Peterson and Paul Gyles of the Bitterroot with a bucket weight of 24.6 pounds for their four heaviest fish. The second day of the bucket competition will be Saturday, April 22. The third and last day of the bucket weigh in will be Sunday, May 7.

So far Hayden Halls is the first angler to turn in a $500 tagged lake trout out of the 33 that have been caught. The $10,000 tagged fish is still out there, along with three $5,000-fish, five $1,000 fish and over 6,000 fish with values ranging from $100 to $500.

Entries continue to be taken until the last day of the event. Go to www.mackdays.com for information on the event, prizes and rules, or call 406-270-3386.