Mac and myself have been coming to the derby for over 20 tears and have seen the highs and lowes of the derby some years we do well and Reg fish in to the derby and win prizes and other years we get just a few.Back at the 94 derby I almost died of Hypo when I lost the boat in real bad weather [bad day]We have stayed at bay side inn for the last 8 years.When we first stayed there the motel was always full derby weekend and if you did not make a res at were you were staying you normally could not find a place to stay on the lake.Last year at the motel there was only 5 boats.The last 8 years have been great because I fish with my son. We do a lot of catchup has you know once they move out you just do not see them has much.I now have him hooked on champ has him and I and mac did the Plattsburg derby last year which I beleive mac got 7 place in last year.Has far has Champ they are STILL fishing in open water for salmon.You can catch them threw the ice and keep them and they have to contend with those nasty lamprey eels.And they still have a great Salmon fishery,I know it is a much larger lake but still has a lot of fishing presure,Myself I think it is all about the bait,talk to anyone who has come to champ the bait pods are huge,we realy target bait there alot more than we do at winni were we see some bait but nothing like up there.I am sad that there is no derby but there are other lakes maybe if we all give it a break try other places maybe it will come back.We can still let w-fat fish there with has many rods has he has because he is a much better boater not a fisherman LOL
I think another change should be the winter derby back to largest lake trout for the big prize,pic,perchs and just a cash prize for largest tagged rainbow my 2cents B-Man sorry for the long post