2021 Fish Winner...s?

Here we at the beginning of another year. I'm hoping 2022 is the best year yet for fishing!

Our winner for the 2021 contest is Mark Marah! This is Mark's 3rd win and is out undisputed walleye master as his previous two wins were walleye as well. Mark also has a secondary species win in 2020 for crappie.

Congratulations Mark!

2021 was a bit of an odd year too, it was the first time since the inaugural year in 2010 when we didn't crown a winner for a category. In 2010 the season was split into two contests, one for the first half of the season and one for the second half. The second half did not have a winner for the primary category for crappies.

This year it was the secondary category for Muskies that didn't deliver a score-able fish. I had planned on doing some muskie fishing this year too, but being busy with the move I spent what little time I had for fishing on bass fishing and I never made it out. I'm hoping 2022 will be different.

The plan will be the $40 for the secondary category will roll into the 2022 contest. The prize money for the secondary species will be $80 instead of $40. The rest of the pot will go to the primary species.

We will be using Fish Donkey again in 2022. I will be drawing for species soon. Once you are entered in the new contest I will let you know the species.

Congrats to Mark again and good luck to everyone in 2022!

2020 Winners! 2021 Announcement!

 

Here are our 2020 Primary Fish species winners by split decision! As everyone should know we had a bit of controversy over who should win the primary fish contest. In the end I decided to split the pot between 1st and 2nd place. Congrats to Mike and John on two very nice fish!

Please comment or get a hold of me if you have any rule suggestions or tie breaker suggestions so we can avoid this in the future.

Our 2020 Winner for Secondary species is Mark with this slab Crappie! Congratulations. No controversary that I'm aware of :)

Thank you everyone for participating and congrats on another great fishing despite the rest of 2020 being a bust..

On to 2021! The 2021 species will be picked soon. so I'd like to get everyone signed up for 2021 and then we will announce the species.

Good luck this season!

 

2020 Contest Announcement

Here it is! The 2020 season is underway and our field is just about finalized! So here is the info for the 2020 contest. For the first time since 2013 Bass has been selected as the primary species. Bass includes largemouth and smallmouth bass. White bass are not included. Crappie has been selected for the secondary species.

As in previous years the winners will be the longest measured fish. The mouth can be closed and tail pinched. Click here for the full rules.

If you have friends that are still interested in participating this year we can still accommodate them. Please keep in mind the spirit of the contest. We want prospective participants to commit to the contest before knowing the species. We would like to have continual participation and not people cherry picking a particular species.

Also, please check out the Big Fish of the Year Facebook group. I'm not sure I know how to link to the exact group but if you go to Facebook.com/groups and search for "Big Fish of the Year" you should be able to find it. I'm pretty bad about posting on social media but I'm going to try to use that group more this year and I want to encourage you all to join as well.

That's it for now, good luck this season!

2019 Winners! 2020 Contest is open!

Congratulations to the 2019 Winners!

The 2019 is a wrap and we are on to 2020. But first lets congratulate our big fish of the year from 2019. Congrats to Bryan for catching a nice 40" Muskie and John on the trophy 29.25" Walleye. Both fish were caught on the same trip to Mille Lacs. I was told there were some real nice Smallmouth caught as well. Sounds like an awesome trip.

I also want to shout out a big thanks to everyone for participating. I hope you all will join use for another season. 2020 will be the 10th season of the contest. You can check out the history of the contest HERE.

We have selected the primary and secondary species. Once you get signed up on the Fish Donkey app I will let you know the species for 2020. As always we ask for your commitment to the contest before  knowing the species. If you want to invite friends we ask the same from them. We try to avoid ringers who are only interested in one species.

Good luck this season!

Season Update!

 

We are off and rolling for the 2019 contest and there's already some very nice fish caught. John Mott currently has the lead for secondary species with this 29.25" Walleye caught on May 31 on Mille Lacs! That might be a tough one to beat this year! On the other side of things we have one Musky submitted that stands at 40"

As a reminder all fish are to be submitted through the app. Remember, there is no word of the year this year since we are using the app. The app will only accept live photos and will log the date and time. John's big Walleye happened to be the first fish logged into the app and we had some technical difficulties. The only photos that showed up in the app are photos of him holding the fish. We have been in touch with technical support and the rest of the photos seem to be coming in fine now. The photos did save to his phone so I'll post them here for everyone to see.

I caught a few Walleyes this week and used the app to see how it worked and seemed to be pretty straight forward. If you're having any issues please let me know.

I may do some more updates to this websites throughout the year. Otherwise keep an eye on the app and the Facebook group for updates!

2018 Winners!

 

Congratulations to Matt for the biggest Crappie and John for the biggest Smallmouth Bass catches of 2018!

With 2019 underway we will look to start the 2019 contest. We will need to select a new primary fish, secondary fish and word of the year. As with previous years I'm looking for input on how to improve the contest for the new year. Participation was down a bit in 2018 and I'm wondering if that has to do with the species or just busy lives. I will take it upon myself to give more frequent updates, maybe even if there are no fish to update the leader board. Another thought I had was to maybe run this contest through a Facebook group rather than this blog style website. I think that would promote comments and conversation, plus you could submit your own photos. I'm not sure if everyone is on Facebook though. Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions.

Since ice fishing is well underway I will try to get the new species selected ASAP. As with previous years, once you commit to the contest I will tell you the species and word of the year but I won't post the info for a month or so while we gather participants.

Here are the possibilities for the 2019 primary species, Largemouth/Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Northern Pike/Muskie. The secondary species possibilities are, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Muskie, Walleye, Crappie. Whichever is selected for the primary fish will be taken out of the running for the secondary fish.

Congrats again to our winners and good luck to everyone in 2019!

New Smallmouth Leader! 20.25"

John Mott caught a nice 20.25" Smallmouth Bass on Mille Lacs over the weekend! The fish weighed in at 4 lbs and 6 oz. You can tell by the second photo why these fish are such strong fighters, look at that giant tail. Compare that to the next Largemouth you catch. 

Also to add is a Josh Foust with a good smallmouth catch. Josh said he didn't measure this one but it's still a nice one to add to the board.

New Crappie Leader! 13.75"

Matt Rabe caught quite a few nice Crappies over the Memorial Day weekend. This was the biggest of them at 13.75" which takes the lead! This fish was caught right off the dock at his cabin in northern Minnesota. I've seen quite a few up shallow over the past week too. Who knows how much longer the shallow bite will last with these warm temps.

Crappie on the Board!

This is not a giant by any means but it's on the board! I caught this while out fishing a local lake with my son. This was caught on a small 3" Keitech swimbait and a 1/8 oz jighead. 

I hope everyone has hit the water by now! Just a reminder to put a tape measure and something with the word on it in your boat. I was actually out on Mille Lacs Monday and caught a really nice smallmouth. The bump board in the photo above doesn't go beyond 16" so I wasn't able to measure it. So remember to get that stuff in the boat!

Good luck all!

2018 Contest Underway!

Here we go!

We are ready to kick off the 2018 Big Fish of the Year Contest! The primary and secondary fish species have been selected and you should have been sent an email with those species listed. I'm going to leave them off the website for now because there are still a few interested people that I'd like to refer to the website but per the idea of the contest I'd like them to commit before knowing the species.

Word of the Year.

The word of the year is supposed to be a random word but we usually pick a category and then ask someone to name something in that category. This year the category was saltwater fish. The fish named was Mahi-mahi which is now the word of the year! Remember to put something with the word "Mahi-mahi" in your boat or tackle box!

Rule Changes

There were a couple of minor rules changes this year. All rules can be found by clicking above for clicking this link. One was how the species is selected. In the past the previous year's species was removed from the lottery selection process. So for example last year's fish species was Walleye, so walleye would be removed from the lottery. This year we decided to include the previous year's fish species but with reduced odds. So this year walleye was included in the lottery but only had half the odds as the other species. We did the same for the secondary species. This gave the odds that we would not have a repeat species but with the possibility it could happen. We felt this was a good option, but I am always interested in feedback if you like this idea or not.

The main rule change this year was to include Wisconsin as a legal fishing for the contest. We have a number of people who have cabins in Wisconsin and we appreciate participation and I just don't really see any downside.

Good luck!

That about wraps things up. Remember we are always looking for more participants in the contest, so if you know anyone interested feel free to pitch them on the idea. Remember we like to keep everyone in the dark on the species until they decide to participate so people don't just cherry pick their favorite species. 

Good luck this season everyone!

Congratulations Mark!

 

Big congratulations to the 2017 Big Fish of the year winner Mark Marah for this giant 27.25" Walleye! This fish was caught on Mille Lacs in late May / early June. It was the bigger of a pair of nices ones caught. Mark was fishing a bottom bouncer in 24 ft of water. This Mark's second win in the contest.

The bonus fish winner was yours truly with a 30.25" Northern Pike caught while prefishing a bass tournament on Chisago Lake in early August. The fish  bit on a deep diving crankbait off an extended rock point.

With the conclusion of the 2017 contest it's time to think about the 2018 contest. As usual we will take the next month or so to round up all interested contestants. Once we close registration we will pick and announce the 2018 fish species and bonus fish. We will also take this time to consider any changes to the contest, opinions are welcome. Please contact me if you have any ideas.

Thanks everyone for participating

24" Walleye, 30.25" Northern with VIDEO!

The Northern Pike registered at 30.25" from Chisago Lake and the Walleye was 24" on Lake Vermilion. I've been running at least one GoPro all season if not two and I got both these catches on video so I thought I'd share them here. 

https://youtu.be/YIq8kPV2CXs

25.5" Mille Lacs Walleye!

Lake Mille Lacs seems to be dominating the big Walleyes so far this season. The pond has kicked out another nice one to put on the board. Matt Rabe caught this 25.5" earlier this week.

Mille Lacs Walleyes take lead!

Mark Marah caught a pair of good Mille Lacs Walleye to take the lead in this year's contest. Mark said he was fishing 24 feet of water with a bottom bouncer. The sizes were 24.75" and 27.25" respectively. The second one is a true giant. Congratulations to Mark!

Jon with a 18" Walleye

Jon is on the board with an 18" Walleye from Pool 2 of the Mississippi River. 

First Walleye of the Season!

 The first walleye of the season is on the board! Although I don't think this one will hold up long, it's nice to see one on the board! 15.25" from Lake of the Woods.

2016 Winners / 2017 Contest Info

2016 Winners

2016 is wrapped up and it's time to announce the contest for 2017! 2016 was a pretty quiet year but I have a feeling 2017 will bring more photos and more updates to the website. But first let's crown Mike Doughty with the 2016 win. Mike caught his 43" Musky.

The bonus fish winner went to me for a 21" Smallmouth caught on Mille Lacs. The fish weighed 5 lbs 9 oz.

2017 Contest Info!

The fish have been selected for the 2017 season. Bass were snubbed for the 4th year in a row and so he primary fish is WALLEYE. The bonus fish is Northern Pike. This should mean we'll see more fish catches and more photos on the website. Remember to read the RULES to avoid any conflicts.

The word for the year is CANADA. Be sure to include this year's word along with a ruler in the photograph.

Good luck this season everyone!

43" Muskie on the board

It took awhile but Doughty put a Muskie on the board. This is a nice 43" Musky and the currently leader for the Big Fish of the Year!

18" Smallmouth

Mark Marah gets on the board with this nice 18" Mille Lacs smallmouth. There are some great markings on this fish, very pretty.

21" Smallmouth Caught

Mille Lacs strikes again for some early season smallmouth action. Put me on the board with this nice 21" fish. It weighed 5 lbs 9 oz and is a new personal best for me. I hope everyone is having a good start to the season!