ORTONVILLE,MINN. - Chad Kinkade and Tommny Skartis of Waterloo, Iowa, won the Masters Walleye Circuit (MWC) Quantum / MotorGuide Team Tournament held May 18-19 on Big Stone Lake at Ortonville, Minn. The popular veteran team weighed a ten fish MWC limit totaling 26.05 lbs., worth $12,000. It was their first victory in four years of competition on the circuit, Kinkade also caught the tourney’s heaviest walleye, 6.37 lbs., earning a $1,500 Mariner Outboards engine rebate plus $700 in cash, Though the full 200 team field experienced favorable weather conditions during the actual tournament, it was a different story during the evening hours. High winds and thunderstorms. including a tornado, passed through the Ortonville area on Friday and Saturday nights. Regardless of Mother Nature’s wrath, the anglers still managed to weigh 1,287 walleyes totaling 2,734.20 lbs. in the MWC’s catch and release format. Skarlis credited his Ranger 690 boat, equipped with a Mercury 175 HP and four stroke kicker outboards, along with MotorGuide’s new Beast bow-mounted electric trolling motor, as keys to the team’s victory. He explained, A major ingredient to our success was boat control. Our equipment performed without a hitch. Kinkade stated that they trolled minnow-imitating crankbaits from Wille Side-Liner planer boards. Most of the fish were caught from the lake’s north end in five feet of water. The lures were set 30 feet behind the boards, with the boat moving in an -S- trolling pattern at 3 mph. The fish struck when the boards changed directions, which also changes the speed of the lures.
Second place and $7,000 went to Mel Reichling and Rich Small of Watertown, So. Dak., whose ten fish limit also weighed 26-05 lbs. However, the MWC’s tie breaker rule goes to the team with the heaviest final day weight, which was 15 lbs. for Kinkade/Skarlis vs. 13.90 lbs. for Reichling/Small. The runners up used several presentations to catch their fish. They cast crankbaits, along with jigs and slip bobber rigs tipped with leeches, along Big Stone’s rocky shoreline. Similar techniques were used by third place finishers, South Dakotans Rick Schaefer (Brookings) and Brett Tschefter (Pierre), Their ten fish limit of 25.65 lbs. earned them $4,500. The top 35 teams shared the $48,000 cash purse.
MWC Executive Director, Bob Kaczkowski, presented a $2,000 check from the MWC Conservation Fund to the Citizens for Big Stone Lake Committee which oversees the lake’s management program. To date, the MWC has contributed $10,000 to the Big Stone Lake project and over $163,000 to fishery programs in states where it conducts tournaments. The next circuit stop is the Mariner Outboards MWC Team Tournament, July 27-28, on Little Bay deNoc at Gladstone, Mich. Openings still exist. For further information, contact the - MWC at 414-761-0657 or the Delta County (Mich.) Chamber of Commerce, 906-786-2192. The MWC is a nonprofit corporation which conducts a series of professionally run fishing tournaments at which family participation and conservation of fishery resources are stressed. MWC - sponsors are Berkley Trilene, Lindy Little Joe, Mariner Outboards, MotorGuide, North American Fishing Club/North American Fisherman, Quantum, Ranger Boats and Wille Products. Competing teams are furnished fishing maps courtesy of Fishing Hot Spots.