By Steve Weisman
You can feel it in the air…the anticipation for one of the most anticipated openers in the Hawkeye state: the 33rd annual Great Walleye Weekend. Set for May 2-3, this two-day fishing tournament brings all kinds of folk together to, yes, FISH!
The tournament kicks off at midnight, actually 12:01 on Saturday morning and concludes at noon on Sunday.
But what if there were something more, you know something to help kick this annual tournament off. Well, thanks to Shane and Christa Kendall, owners of Great Lakes Marine Service & Sales (GLMS) there is!
GLMS www.greatlakesmarneservice.biz), will be hosting a “Walleye Workshop” on Friday, May 1 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Dickinson County Expo building.
“We are very excited to welcome Brian and Brian to the Iowa Great Lakes for Walleye weekend. We wanted to do something that everyone would enjoy. We felt that the Walleye Workshop was a perfect fit,” say Shane and Christa.
Cost will be $25, which includes a catered meal and seminars by Brian Bashore and Brian Fowlds, both highly successful walleye tournament anglers and guides. Bashore’s two seminars include Early Season Tactics and Rip-N-Roll, while Fowlds will share insight Maximizing Your Electronics.
Brian Bashore
Brian Bashore
Bashore, a Nebraska native, grew up fishing the banks of the Blue River and Harlan County Reservoir. He actually fished his first walleye tournament at age 16. Over the years, he has been successful in promoting the sport of fishing through his tournament fishing career, organizing kids fishing clinics, live seminars and affiliation with several other non-profit and community organizations.
Bashore, who also served his country with two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, now lives in Sioux Falls, SD and is part of “The Walleye Guys Fishing Guides,” a highly respected guide service that spends the open water season putting anglers on fish, especially on Lewis and Clark Lake.
“Early Season Tactics” will cover spring walleye fishing: when, where and how for pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn walleyes. Rip-N-Roll by Matzuo will be Bashore’s take on the Matzuo hook and bottom bouncing.
Brian Fowlds
Brian Fowlds
Fowlds, a resident of Tea, SD just southwest of Sioux Falls, SD, will help anglers learn how to better use their electronics. He will specifically talk about utilizing Humminbird, MinnKota and LakeMaster technologies. With the use of a power point presentation, those in attendance will get to see screen images of what Fowlds is talking about. He also encourages questions during the presentation.
A Humminbird/MinnKota pro-staffer for the past four years, Fowlds spends over 100 days a year on the water fishing tournaments, guiding and just plain fun fishing.
Fowlds guides out of Torrey Lake Lodge near Platte, SD and spends most of his time guiding on Lake Francis Case.
According to Shane and Christa, “The knowledge and experience combination of Brian and Brian will make for a very exciting night. We hope to see many anglers join us and take this opportunity as a refresher for those that want to fine tune their fishing presentations.”
This will be a great opportunity to get together for a great meal, to pick up a little fishing and electronics information to help anglers along the way and to sit back and share a few good old fishing stories prior to kicking off the 33rd annual Great Walleye Weekend.
“We are excited and hope to see many anglers join us for an information filled night, a great meal and hopefully what is learned will help land a tagged walleye!”
Registrations are now being taken at GLMS (located just east of Pizza Ranch on HWY 9). For more information, give Shane and Christa a call at (712) 336-3822.
Sponsors include Great Lakes Marine Service, the National Professional Anglers Association (NPAA), Matzuo, Humminbird and Berkley.
