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Date change for Flinty fishing derby moves event up a week

Anglers, mark your calendars. The date for the Flinty Fishing Derby is set for 2020. While the location will remain the same at Bakers Narrows, the derby has moved up a week to March 28 to coincide with the Amisk Lake Derby at Denare Beach March 29.
fishy fishy
This jackfish caught by Morganna Senyk last winter was the top catch of the 2019 Flinty Fishing Derby. The 100-centimeter catch won Senyk a $25,000 prize. - FILE PHOTO

Anglers, mark your calendars. The date for the Flinty Fishing Derby is set for 2020.

While the location will remain the same at Bakers Narrows, the derby has moved up a week to March 28 to coincide with the Amisk Lake Derby at Denare Beach March 29.

Dean Grove is co-chair of the event with Bill Pauley. Grove said the change was to line up with the derby put on by the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation.

“We’ve normally partnered with the Rotary Club in The Pas, but things have changed this year,” he said.

While anglers can take advantage of both events, they will need to separately enter, as the derby in Manitoba will measure fish by length and the derby in Saskatchewan will measure fish by weight.

This is the second year for the Amisk Lake Derby and the sixth year for The Flinty. Last year, over 450 fishers took to Lake Athapapuskow looking to hook up some big prizes.

“I know we got almost 500 last year and in their first year, (Amisk Lake) got about 400 and their derby is going to be bigger this year,” Grove said.

“We're hoping we can pull a lot of people into the region and get some economic development for our businesses and supporters for the event.”

Grove said many of the anglers that participate in the derby come from outside of the Flin Flon area.

“I think we had about 100 walk ups last year, but 40 per cent of our online sales were from out of town,” he said.

“I would say if we're getting 500, we did about 250 to 300 online. Forty per cent of that is having an impact in terms of bringing people into our area. It also meshes nicely with Flin Flon’s ‘The Water and The Wild’ theme.”

Grove said the Rotary Club is still working to bring in the final prizes, but the grand prize of $25,000 is locked in. Second place will win a 14 feet long boat and third prize will be an ATV. The rest of the prizes have yet to be locked in.

“We're still on the final push we because we were trying to figure out whether we're going to go with The Pas again or not, so we got off to a little bit later start,” Grove said.

“We're on a push now to get the prizes. We’ve got most of the major ones in place but we’re still hoping to fill out some of the other ones.”

Other prizes at last year’s event were given to the angler who caught a fish closest to a secret length and the angler who caught the smallest fish.

“Last year, we had 35 fish caught and we had 35 prizes,” Grove said.

“Basically anybody caught a fish got a prize. There were 50/50 draws and some tickets for

fishing resort trip. There are a few different options for people and anybody who catches a fish basically got a prize (last year).”

Now, Flinty’s derby organizers will be looking at the weather.

“We're kind of like farmers without crop insurance,” Grove said.

“You're really dependent on the weather, but if we get good weather, we think we're going to have a good, good fishing derby again. We think partnering with Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation is going to be good for our local economy. They've been really good to work with so far and we're hoping that it can benefit both derbies.”

Early bird anglers for the Flinty Fishing Derby will receive a 20 minute head start before the rest of the field.

For more information on the upcoming 2020 Flinty derby or to sign up, visit flintyfishderby.com.

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