The Ohio Walleye Federation held its first Lake Erie Central Basin Circuit event of the season out of Lorain, OH on Saturday June 8th. Twenty-five teams participated in the first OWF event that allowed 3 person teams. Teams were greeted with calm seas and great lake conditions and the fish didn’t disappoint. Thirteen teams brought 5-fish baskets to the scale weighing more than 40lbs! The team of Aaron Humbert, Wyatt Humbert and Mark Carr took top honors with an impressive 5 fish limit weighing 46.48lbs anchored by a 12.02lb walleye which also took big fish for the tournament. The results for 2nd through 5th place were extremely tight with less than .2lbs separating 2nd and 5th place. The winning team caught their fish just N of Lorain trolling Crankbaits and Harnesses at 2mph. The rest of the top finishers were predominantly trolling harnesses around 1.5mph. Most of the top placing teams were trolling amongst the big pack of boats north/north west of Lorain in 35-50ft of water. A special note for the tournament was that 3 of the teams finishing in the money had a father/son combination on the team. It is great to see kids getting into fishing and hopefully the 3 person format will continue to encourage anglers to get more kids involved in tournament fishing.
Lorain Qualifier 1 Finish
Team # Fish Weight
Humbert, Humbert, Carr 5 46.48 1
McGowen, Kagarise 5 44.62 2
Zart, Zart, Nadzam 5 44.58 3
Spano, Spano, Hudak 5 44.56 4
Rhodes, Robinson, Jones 5 44.46 5
Berkey, Johnson, Bird 5 43.80 6
Shipman, Shipman, Shipman 5 43.46 7
Kilian, Snow, Murphy 5 42.68 8
Kerr, Robinson, Davies 5 42.38 9
Rieger, Fike, Ball 5 42.10 10
The next OWF tournament will be Geneva on July 13th. This is an open tournament sponsored by Vic’s Sports Center with a guaranteed $2500 1st place payout and 100% payback of the tournament entry fee. $200 to register, Up to 4 person teams, 6 rod maximum.
You can register or find more details at www.fishowf.com.
