BRAINERD — A snowy, blustery day met anglers for the 35th annual Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza on Saturday, Feb. 1, but conditions didn’t stop a Carver woman from finding success and a brand new truck.
Siera Romine came from Carver for the 15th year and snagged a 5.85-pound walleye to take home the top prize — a brand new Ford or GMC truck from Mills Automotive Group.
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“I feel wonderful — kind of partly in shock, honestly,” Romine said after her win.
She wasn’t sure yet which truck she’d choose, saying she likes both Fords and GMCs.
Romine caught her prize-winning walleye on a buck-shot rattle spoon in 15 feet of water. But the real secret to her success?
“Have a good husband that baits your hook and helps bring it out of the hole,” she said with a laugh. “... And make sure it’s the most miserable day, and you'll get it.”
Temperatures sat in the 20s for much of the tournament, with the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport measuring gusts of wind up to 39 miles per hour at times, making the air feel about 10 degrees. A light snow fell throughout the afternoon.
While Minnesotans might be used to and built for the harsh weather, the conditions didn’t stop Los Angeles friends Ghulam Ashiq and Tulio Alvarez from having a grand time that got even better when the results came out. Ashiq’s 0.26-pound perch came in 100th place, earning him an Ice Castle fish house.
“I didn’t expect it,” he said after the results came out, surrounded by friends from both California and Minnesota.
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What does a Californian do with an ice house?
He leaves it in Nisswa, of course.
“Now I’ve got real estate in Minnesota,” Ashiq said, noting the Ice Castle will be parked at Alvarez’s lake house in Nisswa.
Alvarez himself placed No. 97, winning an apex ice suit from Striker. The two friends visit Nisswa regularly in the summer and now plan to keep coming back to the extravaganza, seeing as Ashiq made a name for himself in his second year in attendance.
“That’s a big thing for LA,” he said. “We needed a win.”
A Care Bear, a deer hat and a rose
A pink Care Bear with a rainbow on its belly signified the McKibbons’ hole, protecting Keith, sons Blair and Ryan and friend Ryan Ruckdashel from the bad weather and any other bad energy on the lake.
While the fish weren’t biting for the clan this year, Keith McKibbon, who came down from Esko for the tournament, recalled last year’s hybrid tournament, when he caught a couple walleyes on Round Lake and left with some stitches in his face from falling on the ice.
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But it’s not the fish that’s kept them coming back for six years.
“It’s the love of ice fishing and the camaraderie and beauty of seeing all these beautiful people out here,” Keith McKibbon said.
A few holes over, Tucker Vetsch stood out from the crowd, sporting a hat made out of a deer mount. The Little Falls man explained that his dad shot the deer a few years back and made it into a hat as a joke. Vetsch decided to wear the hat to the ice fishing extravaganza once, and it’s become a tradition for more than five years now.
“Every year I like to tweak it up a little bit. This year, I put a bike helmet in there so I could actually have a chin strap so it doesn’t fall off my head,” he said. “But I always wear it, and I get a lot of attention.”
Vetsch said someone in his group has placed on the leaderboard just about every year they’ve come to the tournament. His dad was sitting in one of the top 150 spots Saturday, but Vetsch himself hadn’t caught anything yet.
“Nothing but a good time,” he clarified.
Not far from the access checkpoint stood the Brose family flag, with a picture of a rose placed after “Brr” and before “e,” playing on the name’s pronunciation of BRO-zee. Underneath that, the flag read “fish you were here.”
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“Obviously you don’t catch a fish and get on the leaderboard every year,” Derek Brose said, noting he’s come to the tournament from Eden Prairie for 10 years in a row. “But it definitely feels like a Minnesota experience that you kind of have to have.”
The group has only caught two fish in 10 years, but one of those came with the catch of a walleye on Saturday.
Over in the weigh-in tent, 11-year-old Ace Pavel and dad Shane were weighing in the second walleye they caught of the day. Their catches weighed in at 0.07 pounds and 0.12 pounds, which just missed this year’s leaderboard.
They’ve been coming from Inver Grove Heights together for about six years, and Saturday’s fish were the first they’d ever caught.
“I started this as a little tradition here, so now we just keep doing it,” Shane Pavel said.
“It’s fun to do,” Ace chimed in. “It’s something to do with the family, and there’s lots of stuff to do here.”
Music blasted from the B93.3 tent, while food vendors sold hot snacks and beverages to keep anglers warm all afternoon. Contestants fished closer to shore on Gull Lake’s Hole-in-the-Day Bay this year because of a large ice heave, but everything else about the contest remained the same, with $150,000 worth of prizes won, from Romine’s truck and Ashiq’s ice house to augers, sport utility vehicles, resort stays and Fleet Farm gift cards.
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The leaderboard and a full list of raffle winners is available at icefishing.org . Prizes must be claimed at Fleet Farm in Baxter by noon on Sunday, Feb. 2. Anything unclaimed will be donated to charity. Proceeds from the event support local charities, with the majority going to Confidence Learning Center.
Next year’s Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 31.
THERESA BOURKE may be reached at theresa.bourke@brainerddispatch.com or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa.
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