Rocky Lake Manitoba, – Even the restrictive health orders did not stop the Jimmy Jackfish Derby from happening.
“We were lucky to be one of the only derbies to happen last year”, said Johanna McLauchlan, Chairperson of the derby. “We struggled with the health restriction on how to make a derby this year and then we found FishDonkey!”
The FishDonkey App is a online virtual fishing platform for derbies and it is used throughout the world. With the app downloaded on their smart phone people could fish on any lake north of the 53rd parallel in Manitoba and enter the derby.
“It really is amazing technology “, Stated Don Gamache , derby committee member, “ you down load the app, enter the derby and then go fishing!. When you catch a fish you take some photographs of the fish on a measuring board and a release video and enter the derby through the app”
The derby this year started on March 1st and ended on March 14th which is a change from the usual one-day derby.
“The derby format changed somewhat to allow fishers time to get onto the lake taking into consideration the possibility of bad weather” ,said Ken Gurba, Finance Chair of the derby. “This allowed more flexibility for the fishers and a better chance to get on the Leaderboard”
Communities including Lynn Lake in the north, Norway house and Cross Lake in the East and The Pas in the south all were represented by fishers in the derby. Fish were entered in one of three division- Walleye, Northern Pike and Burbot.
“ We had 116 people fishing and 157 fish were caught during the derby” said Peter McLauchlan sponsor and committee member. ” we are happy with the result and glad that people had fun”
The leader board consisted of 23 prizes and the top entry in each division received 20% of the take which resulted in a cash prize of $928. Additional prizes from the sponsors we given to winning fishers
Several businesses sponsor the derby including Pete’s Pro Tackle , Northland Leisure, RAG 1987 Ltd, Shanes, Profit’s, Rocky Lake Birchworks, Eskimo Ice Fishing and Acme Tackle Company.
Proceeds from the derby go towards community enhancement including repair of the boat launch at the East Shore.
