Spring Mack Days to hold special drawings for Mother's Day weekend

Lake trout anglers on Flathead Lake have two weekends left in the 2021 Spring Mack Days fishing event on Flathead Lake. It is not too late to become involved and win some of the $225,000 in cash and prizes that is sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Come out and help in the effort to reduce numbers of the non-native lake trout in Flathead Lake and increase the populations of native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.

A total of 22,534 lake trout entries have been turned in by 216 hard-working anglers. The Friday to Sunday total is 20,561, and Monday to Thursday total is 1,973. Friday’s total came to 1,039, Saturday 696, and the total fish count for Sunday was 742.

The $10,000 tagged lake trout is still waiting for some lucky angler. Three $5,000 and five $1,000 tagged lake trout plus over 9,000 with values from $100 to $500. Hank McLeod of Kalispell turned in a $500 tagged fish, and Julie Perkins of Kalispell turned in a $200 lake trout last week.

Due to COVID-19, there will not be a fish fry or awards ceremony on the last day of the event. Drawings will be done electronically after the event ends. There is a total of $30,000 in the lottery drawings. The drawings begin at $50 and go to $1,000. There will be 67 drawings for the cash prizes. All it takes is one fish entry to be a winner.

Special for Mother’s Day Weekend will be a drawing for a Siberian Cooler, Powell fishing rod and stadium seat. Every lake trout under 30 inches will be entered for this special drawing Friday through Sunday, and there will be an added special drawing for the last two weekends.

The third and final day of the Heaviest Bucket of Fish was Sunday. Rick Skates of Big Arm turned in a winning weight of 27.35 pounds for his bucket of four lake trout. Terry Krogstad and Julie Perkins were second with a weight of 24.2. Shore anglers Kathleen Bell of St. Ignatius and Julie Duncan of Polson were third with 23.75 pounds in their bucket. Overall winners of the three bucket days were Terry and Julie with 20 points. Second and third places were tied with 10 points -- a tie is broken by weight. Second place with a total weight of 48.4 for three buckets goes to Travis Banyai and Hank McLeod of Kalispell. Third place went to Bob Turner and Kolton Turner of Kalispell with a weight of 35.95 for two buckets.

Weekend winners of $100 were: Marty Herak-Polson, Jason Mahlen-Kalispell, Ken Varga-Kalispell, Andy Reed-Kalispell, and Bob Turner.

Julie Perkins leads the ladies with 252, followed by Connie Jones of Kalispell with 60, Nicole Peters of Missoula with 44, Lisa Cloo of Clinton with 30 and Debbie Paine of Polson with 29.

Kolton Turner is leading in the Top 10 Angler category with 1,477 and an 18-day average of 80.5, Jason Mahlen is second with 1,435 and 77.94, followed by Bob Turner with 1,175 and 64.33, Mike Benson-Lonepine with 770 and 41.5, Steve Benson-Spokane Valley with 733 and 40.39, and Sam Cusker of Bigfork with 714 (no average).

Larry Karper is first in the Golden Oldies category even though he ended the weekend fishing with just one rod. Fishing rods can vanish without a sound-many anglers know the feeling when that happens. Larry could not believe it when he turned to one of his poles and it had disappeared. The only place it could go was in the water. Maybe it will end up on his line next weekend. Larry’s total is 641, followed by Jack Kirkland of Missoula with 523, Larry Ashwell of Missoula with 361, Marty Herak of Polson with 141 and 5th John Gauci of Florence with 73.

Kalispell angler Matt Guckenberg Jr is first in the 13-17 category with 269.

For more information please visit www.mackdays.com.