Warrior Boats David A. Andersen Memorial Walleye Tournament Results
Category: article
34 seconds ago by Keith Worrall
Amended August 14, 2022 at 10:44 am
BY Joe Henry of Lake Of The Woods MN
The Warrior Boat Company located in Melrose, MN again held its 10th Annual Dealer Meeting called the Warrior Rally and the 7th Annual David A. Andersen Memorial Walleye Tournament on Lake of the Woods last week. Although Warrior dealers and boat owners stayed at many resorts in the area, Wigwam Resort was again the official headquarters for these events.
144 Warrior boats with two-person crews competed for cash and prizes. The week has been filled with new boat unveilings, business meetings, friendships, a great tournament and a company that looks to its boat owners like one big family.
“It’s definitely one of my favorite weeks of the year,” explained Kent Andersen, National Sales Manager for Warrior Boats. “Spending time with the Warrior family is definitely the highlight. Hosting this event at Lake of the Woods is a big part of the success. There’s something special about this area, the feeling of wilderness, it’s peaceful, no big cities. It’s just the whole atmosphere.
1 Trials on the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods
2 The format of this tournament is Catch – Record – Release
3 Tournament Results
Road tests on the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods
“We always have road tests and introduce new products at this event. We had 23 different models of boats on the water to demonstrate this year. We have people watching Warriors come over from nearby states to try out various models on big waters like Lake of the Woods. It’s the perfect atmosphere,” Andersen explained.
I mentioned to Kent how I met a team of two warriors at one of the stations, some really nice guys, who had a Warrior V238 with a 450 HP Mercury in the back. It was impressive ! They said they got back from west of Long Point to opposite Pine Island in 16 minutes in calm seas, of course, at about 60 mph. “Our biggest boat is the Warrior V238. It is rated for a 450 HP motor. There were probably 25 boats like this at this year’s tournament, not all with 450s though, some had 400s.”
The format of this tournament is Catch – Record – Release
The only criteria you had to meet to fish this tournament, you had to fish from a Warrior Boat! This tournament has grown from 34 boats when it debuted in 2016 to 144 Warrior boats this year.
Asking Andersen how the fishing was overall, without hesitation that was fine. “The fishermen caught a good number and a lot of big fish. This shows that the slot machine is working. We like AIM to organize our tournaments and do the Capture recording format as well.”
CRR is a format where anglers take two pictures of a walleye they want to record. A photo is a walleye measurement on an official bump board handed out at the start of the day by tournament officials. The second photo is a “hero” photo, showing the markings of the fish so it cannot be used a second time.
Anglers are also given a scorecard to record their lengths. At the end of the day, anglers determine their 5 longest walleyes and use the conversion chart to convert inches to weight.
Price
This format does several different things. First, it counts walleye in a protected slot as fish are released. Second, it allows tournament anglers to release the fish back into the water.
Tournament Results
Nate Gilkey and Dan Pfeifer claimed victory in this tournament with an eye-catching 49.37 pounds for 5 golds. That’s nearly an average of 10 lbs per walleye!
This tournament attracts many top anglers from all over the Midwest. Some of them have already fished in the Lake of the Woods. For some, they’ve always wanted it and that’s a great reason to come.
In the end a lot of walleyes were caught and a lot of big walleyes were caught. The lake is health and these fishermen know how to fish!
Although this walleye was caught before the tournament fishery, it was certainly attracting a lot of attention. One of the pre-fishing anglers with Fish Addictions TV’s Mike Olson was Brian Konz. Brian caught an absolute beast of walleye, 34 inches to be exact! Not only was this fish long, it was big. What was really impressive was that he eclipsed a big 28-inch walleye caught at the same time, which really gave him a massive size perspective.
It’s been a good week and a special week for the Warrior family at LOW. Andersen talked about how much the Warrior family loves coming to Lake of the Woods. “We would like to thank Wigwam and the entire Lake of the Woods resort and small business community for such a welcome into our Warrior Boat family. We are very grateful and look forward to 2023!
Lake of the Woods Area Information
Accommodation around Lake of the Woods
