The Ranger 620 with Ryan Klein and daughter Kennedy were one of the last walleye tournament fishing boats to take off about dawn on June 14, the day before Father’s Day. They were among 100 boat teams chasing walleyes on the connecting waters of Bemidji Lake and Lake Irving – located in north-central Minnesota at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.
Ryan, 43 of Blackduck, Minn., is an experienced walleye angler and knows the lakes well. He entered the limited entry event with his second grade daughter to claim one of the last team spots in the 100-boat maximum tourney. They got into good walleye action right away on that 70-degree day with a slight breeze and overcast sky.
“I used my Garmin ‘LiveScope’ to find big fish in about 8 feet of ultra-clear water on sand grass flats,” Ryan tells Wired2fish. “The tournament has a five-fish limit, and only two of the five can be over 20 inches – all are released.”
Casting jigs and jigs tipped with nightcrawlers, Ryan caught two big walleyes that morning – one weighing 7.49 pounds, the second just a bit smaller.
Kennedy had her arm in a cast, so her job that day was netting fish for Ryan and taking photos of each of his walleyes. Both jobs are vital to winning the tourney. Since all walleyes are released-on-the-spot, good photos of the fish and their lengths determine a winner.
Three of the five walleyes in a limit for the event cannot be more than 20 inches long. So, three fish at that top 20-inch length, plus the two larger ones over 20 inches, calculates to weight according to tourney rules, and results in winning places for the event. It’s all proven by photos of fish caught that day.
“We got fish off and on, all day,” said Ryan, who owns JR’s Corner Access, a winter ice fishing resort on Minnesota’s Upper Red Lake. “We caught about 25 walleyes total, and our three big fish under 20 inches were the key for us to win. Each of those fish weighed over three pounds. Two were right at 20 inches in length, the third one was 19 inches. Without those three big under 20-inchers, we wouldn’t have won.”
Ryan says there were bigger walleyes caught in the tourney that day, with fish over 8 pounds boated. But other competitors’ smaller 20-inch-or-less walleyes didn’t match the size of the three Ryan and Kennedy brought to the boat, photographed and released back into Bimidji Lake.
The tournament ended that day at 3:30 p.m. Awards and prize money were given at 6 p.m. Kennedy received a check for $15,000 for the win she and Ryan earned. When asked what she was going to do with her winnings, like buy a new bike or something else special she said, “Nope, I’m putting all that money in my savings account.”
“We may fish another tournament together this year,” Ryan said while still relishing his win with Kennedy. “But we are for sure going to compete in next year’s Bimidji Knights of Columbus Walleye Classic.”
