Author: John Ringenbach

What a great weekend…..The Tribe clinches home field for the playoffs, the Browns win big at home, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous for a muskie fishing tournament at West Branch.  A total of 49 anglers signed up to fish the Minnow Fund.  With the money raised this weekend and past events and donations, OHMC has over $4,000 to contribute to next year’s ODNR stocking effort.

The muskies were caught, probably not as many as we would have hoped, but 14 legal fish came to the net.  The winner of the event with a 37.75″, 37.5″ and 32.5″ was Jeff Belcher.  You will have to talk with Jeff to find our his secrets for putting fish in the boat.  Second Place with two fish, 38″ and 35″ was John Proch.  OHMC has records going back to 1961, not sure this is a first, but John caught all of his fish from a kayak.  Given the success of a number of our members with kayaks, they clearly are a force.

Big fish was caught by our Past President, Fred Lederer with a 44.5″ beast earning Fred a pool payout of $225.

The remaining fish caught are:

Jerry Rice 31.75″

Jeff Ferjutz  36.75″

Ray Elkins  36.75″ and 33.5″

Daniel Bruyrie  35″

Jeff Giles  33″

Jeff Dvorak  38″

Joe Tenebria  34″

A big thank you for all who came out and supported the event.  Our next event is the Muskie Munch October 24 at Salt Fork Lake.  This is a one day event where the longest fish caught is the winner.

 

 

 

 

Time for the 8^th Annual Minnow Fund outing to be held on September 26^th and 27^th at West Branch.  The preturnover shallow bite should be in full swing by then meaning there will be a lot of opportunities for numbers of fish and big fish.

The event will begin at 8 am on Saturday and concludes at 3 pm on Sunday.  All fish 30 inches or greater will count and be scored using the standard Muskies Inc. method.  Winners of 1^st place and 2^nd place will receive trophies at our 2021 Banquet.  All fish must be turned into the Tournament Director by 3:30 pm at the parking lot located directly across from the campsite office at West Branch.

There is camping available at West Branch.  Here is the site to make a reservation:

https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/west-branch-state-park

You can register for the event one of 3 ways:

Register online at

https://fs11.formsite.com/N2PLlu/ivt1xxsyyd/index.html

the online registration includes payment thru PayPal.

Or, Mail your registration to OHMC, 17712 Edgewater, Lakewood, Ohio 44107,

Or, register in person Saturday morning from 6 am to 8 am in the parking lot directly across from the campsite office at West Branch; look for our canopy.  Due to Covid restrictions, there will be no registration Friday evening at the campsites. We will be observing best practices for Covid 19 during registration.

We encourage registration online or by mail to respect the risks due to Covid 19.  In that light, we will not be providing a fish fry Friday night nor a meal Saturday night which is what has been done in the past.

The entry fee will be $20 and there will be a big fish pool entry of $5.   Entry fees and money raised will be directly deposited to the Minnow Fund.   In the past 7 years, we have donated over $43,000 to the stocking efforts in Ohio.   Thank you for your support which has made this a reality.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Here are the rules for the event.

2020 Minnow Fund Outing Rules

The 50^th Annual Summer Contest, this year on Piedmont Lake, is now history.  A total of 43 anglers registered for the event with over 30% signing up online and the rest using our new Trustee constructed Registration Station featuring PVC pipes and shower curtains.  Folks were able to concentrate on the fishing since we did not have our usual Friday fish fry or Saturday night steak fry.   A total of 26 fish were caught and successfully released with the largest being two 44” fish, one caught by Scott Donohew and the other by Chad Harmon.  Scott and Chad split the big fish pool.

Scott Donohew was the overall winner with 12 fish caught.   Scott’s key for finding muskies was locating areas where the surface temperature was 81 degrees or cooler.  Turns out the muskies know where the cooler water is on the lake.  Second place was Rick Simpson with 4 fish.  Rick is proving to be quite the tournament angler placing second here and winning our Lunge Fest event at Leesville last month.  Rick and Tim Smith also placed 12th in the recent PMTT event in Wisconsin.

We also had our Grand Prize drawing at the event.  If you remember, the Grand Prize includes a custom rod from Excalibur Rodworks, Shimano Calcutta 400 B reel spooled with Power Pro, a tackle box from Muskie Train full of baits , a Yeti cooler donated by InCom Supply , a bump board from MuskieBumper, and a one week stay at a beautiful cottage on Leesville Lake donated by North Fork Marina.   The winner was Forest P. from the Dayton, Ohio area.

Thanks to all for supporting the event and the club.  Here is a complete list of the fish caught:

 

Scott Donohew       36”,38”,44”,38.5”,39.5”,32.5”,34”,33”,30”,33.5”, 31” and 33”

Rick Simpson           36”,41.5”, 31” and 40”

Chad Harmon          39.5” and 44”

Fred Lederer            35.25”

Jeff Clark                   36”

Matt Clark                 37”

Phil Ringenbach        30.5”

Linda Zonker              30”, 35” and 37”

Jerry Rice                     38”

 

Our next event will be the 8^th Annual Minnow Fund outing on West Branch September 26th and 27^th.

 

After a great Lunge Fest at Leesville, we are all ready for the next great event which will be our Summer Contest Saturday and Sunday July 11^th and 12^th at Piedmont Lake.   With our colder than normal spring, water temperatures for this event in one month should be in great shape, and with Piedmont having a history of big fish, should provide some exciting results.  The event will begin at 7 am on Saturday and concludes at 2 pm on Sunday.  All fish 30 inches or greater will count and be scored using the standard Muskies Inc. method.  Winners of 1^st place and 2^nd place will receive trophies at our 2021 Banquet.  All fish must be turned into the Tournament Director by 2:30 pm at the Piedmont Marina parking lot.

Being a two-day event, we have talked with the folks at Piedmont Marina and there is tent camping available for that weekend.   Each site has a concrete pad for boat and trailer and room for two tents on the grass.   Contact the Watershed and make your reservations at

https://www.camplife.com/551/reservation/step1

You can register for the event one of 3 ways:

Register online at https://fs11.formsite.com/N2PLlu/3q9v8qfgqx/index.html

the online registration includes payment thru PayPal.

Or, Mail your registration to OHMC, 17712 Edgewater, Lakewood, Ohio 44107,

Or, register in person Friday evening from 6 pm to 8 pm or Saturday morning from 6 am to 7 am in the Piedmont Marina parking lot; look for our canopy.  We will be observing best practices for Covid 19 during registration.

We encourage registration online or by mail to respect the risks due to Covid 19.  In that light, we will not be providing a fish fry Friday night nor a steak fry Saturday night which is what has been done in the past.

The entry fee will be $20 and there will be a big fish pool entry of $5.   Money raised will be used to fund our contribution to the Minnow Fund.   In the past 7 years, we have donated over $43,000 to the stocking efforts in Ohio.   Thank you for your support which has made this a reality.  In addition, at registration either online, or in the mail or in person, you can purchase tickets to our Grand Prize drawing which will take place Sunday afternoon after the tournament.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

 

Here are the rules for the event

2020 Summer Contest Rules

 

Here is the Grand Prize.

 

2020 Grand prize board

Wow, what a day.  Started out a little cool with patches of drizzle and rain but then the sun came out for a beautiful afternoon.  A great turnout of 56 anglers seeking to unlock the magic of Leesville Lake were ready to go at 7 am.  Jason Basic foretold what was to come by landing an impressive 49 inch giant early in the morning. In fact too early in the morning, just one half hour before the tournament was to start.  We also had some exciting first catches……Colton Harmon got his first muskie with a 43″ and Maggie Butara, our Social Media Director, was thrilled to land her first 10 minutes into the event, a solid 39.75″.  By the end of the day, a total of 18 muskies were registered for the event, but there were also a few fish caught that were not registered.  The fish were clearly active Saturday.  When it was all said and done, after a nice long nap midday, Rick Simpson managed to be awake long enough to catch the big fish of the tournament, a hefty 46″ beast.   Here is the complete list of fish and a few pictures.  Check out our Instagram page and Facebook for more pictures as they are sent in by our anglers.  We are nearing 1,000 followers on Instagram and will have a prize package to be awarded when the magic number is reached….so if you are not already following us, jump on board and you could win some cool lures and a selection of products from Cleveland Fishing Company.

Rick Simpson 46′ and 44″

Colton Harmon 43″

Maggie Butara 39.75″

Dave White 39.5″ and 38.5″

Jerry Rice 38.5″

Neil Butara 38.5″ and 38.25″

Will Tolerton 38.5″,35″ and 31″

Dave Zastawny 38″ and 34″

Chuck Land Sr. 37″

Larry Connelly 36.5″

Matt Clark 35″

Kevin Proffitt 33.5″