Kalispell angler wins Mack Days

Nine weeks of the 2022 Spring Mack Days Fishing Event has ended with a total of 21,013 lake trout entries being turned in by two hundred lake trout anglers out of the six hundred twenty-four anglers entered.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes offers up to $225,000 in awards for the spring event, which is used as a management tool to help increase the populations of native bull trout and westslope trout in Flathead Lake by decreasing the non-native lake trout numbers.

Winning the Top Twenty Angler Category was Kolton Turner of Kalispell with a total of 1,582 weekend entries. His 18-day average was 71.61. Second place went to Jason Mahlen of Kalispell with 1,315 and a 62.06 average, third was Bob Turner (1,268, 59.94), and both Turners turned in perfect 100 scores on Saturday. Sam Cusker of Bigfork was fourth (668, 35.17), fifth was Steven Benson of Spokane Valley with (640, 31.94), in sixth was Clint Speer of Kalispell (640, 31.72), Mike Benson of Lonepine was seventh (592, 30.33), Larry Karper of Florence came in eighth pleace (528, 28.56), in ninth was Jerry Benson of Plains (576, 27.5), and in tenth place was Travis Banyai of Lakeside (508, 26.28).

“The Captain,” a lake trout valued at $10,000, did not come in at the end of any angler’s line-he is still roaming the lake along with the other high dollar tagged lake trout. Their tag numbers will be revalued and new high-dollar tagged lake trout will be tagged right before the Fall event.

Matt Guckenberg, Jr., of Kalispell won the age 13-17 category with 79, Brodie Smith of Kalispell was second with 69, followed by Thomas Airhart of Kalispell (11), Karson Cox of Charlo (6), and Otto Anderson of Columbia Falls (5).

Julie Perkins of Kalispell was first in the ladies category with 300, second was Connie Jones of Kalispell with 78, third Rebecca Spring of Alberton with 18, fourth Kathleen Bell of St. Ignatius with 17, and Ia Thao of Missoula had 11 for fifth place. Larry Ashwell took first in the 70 and over with 425, followed by Jack Kirkland with 385, Marty Herak of Polson with 88, John Gauci of Florence with 44, and Paul Grove of Wyoming, Illinois with 38.

Clint Speers and Paul Groves won custom bait knives created by Bob Crowder of Thompson Falls.

The Fall Mack Days event will begin September 15. For more information, go to http://www.mackdays.com.