By Bruce Karnick

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On a beautiful 50-degree Saturday in February, there was still nearly three feet of ice on North Lake for the final weekend of ice fishing in Minnesota. Area residents have been organizing a fishing contest on North Lake for the previous four years and they were not going to let COVID stop that. Dan Reuter organized the event and with the help of word of mouth and social media advertising. Over 150 people participated.

There were raffle prizes given out and cash prizes for the largest muskie, largest crappie and largest sunny. There were meat raffles and all sorts of stuff being won, including an Adam Thielen autographed Vikings jersey. There was even an entrepreneurial young lady out with a wagon selling Girl Scout cookies!

Unfortunately for participants, the fish were not hungry at all near the noon start of the tournament. The first fish was not weighed in until after 2:00 p.m. when Mae excitedly caught a .28 oz sunny. No one claimed the top $300 prize for the largest Muskie. Jesse won the $200 for largest crappie and Eric took home the $100 prize for largest sunny.

The plan from the tournament was that funds raised will be donated to Hastings Family Services. The Journal spoke to Reuter on Monday morning to find out the official participation numbers and the amount raised for HFS. Reuter explained that he still needed to tally all the costs and donations from the event and that he hoped to have that number calculated by the end of the week. He could not comment of when he expects to deliver the remaining funds to HFS or how much they would be.

Reuter did want to thank everyone for coming out and supporting the tournament. Participants had a blast, and he hopes to go even bigger and better next year.

Mae caught the first fish of the day, a .28 oz Sunny. She was extremely proud of her catch, showing anyone she could. Photo by Ashley Nicole.

Jesse caught the biggest crappie of the day, netting him the $200 prize. Photo courtesy of Aaron Schultz.

Nick won the biggest sunny catch of the day, a $100 prize. Photo Courtesy of Aaron Schultz.