RRWT is perfect just the way it is!

Ken Johnston
Editor

What an amazing event we have going every September in Rainy River.

There was so much excitement in and around the tent all weekend it was hard not to get a high off of it.

Despite the fact that lots of fish were small people still were excited by the competition. In fact after day 1 with the top five teams all being locals, it had everyone buzzing about who might be crowned champion the next day.

While I am glad we attract teams from a broad region, I was, in my heart, hoping that it would be a local team that won this year.

So when a team from Baudette and Warroad (Amundsen and Gowdy) came in with a great second day catch, I was thinking I might be disappointed.

But then Ethan and John Swentik came into the tent and bumped them off the podium. That was a relief but there were still two boats to go; both of whom were also crowd favourites Dan and Bryce Godin and Doug Jorgenson and Al Wolanicki.

I was happy it was going to be a local team no matter what, but the suspense was a killer. In fact John Swentik turned so white when Bryce Godin pulled out a big fish that turned out to be a gag, I thought he was going to have a heart attack right next to me.

Friday night I visited with some of the anglers at the CN Hotel and all of them had at one time or another been in the day 2 boat final five. One of them even said, “Half of this tournament is just making the top five on day one and riding through the tent. This tournament is so fun.”

Winning it is just as much fun, as I am sure Ethan and John can attest to now!

Over several beer the talk also turned from the current tournament format to one that clearly was influenced by the beer. We discussed having a multispecies tourney where anglers would catch a different species each day or bring in one of four different species each day. But like I said it was influenced... the RRWT is perfect just the way it is! –Until then, Ken