East Battle Fishing Tournament—Saturday, June 24, 2023

This year’s northern pike tournament will be held on Saturday, June 24th.

A recap, the “goal” and the “why”: Remove as many northern pike under 22” as we can within the legal framework of the DNR rules and regulations. Northern Pike are voracious feeders, and generally easy to catch. They are a significant predator that can make it difficult to establish our walleye stock. East Battle Lake, like so many lakes in the Central Region, has a large overpopulation of stunted, small northern pike. Thinning out the numbers would allow the remaining pike to attain larger sizes, at a lower density. Large northern pike feed on small northern pike. Our lake is missing those apex-level predators. For the last 100 years or so, the established practce for northern pike was to keep the big ones, and let the little ones go. That makes sense on the surface, however, the net result of that practice established this massive populaton of little northerns. There are too many to grow larger.

As these little northern pike are not appreciated as a food source, most fisherman quickly release them. We strongly encourage removal of these fish whenever possible. Now the disclaimer from the EBLWA board- while the DNR has raised the limits of these under 22” pike to 10 per person, wanton waste laws prohibit removal without utilizing them.

Like last year, our tournament will be a “catch and kill.” All participants will do so based on the understanding that these northern pike caught for the tournament will not be released back to the lake. We would like to see a huge number of participants. Due to the small size of our public access, we are forced to limit participants to lake shore owners and their guests. Invite lots of guests!

Let’s have some fun with this and see what we can accomplish. Last year we removed almost 800 small northern pike.

Specific rules are included and will be posted on the EBLWA Facebook page and our website. Feel free to reach out to Carl Loge with any questions at cloge@nextdayaccess.com, or via phone at 701-361-0633.

Note from Mary: We are fortunate to have very generous donors for this event. We thank

Janet & Doug Vanderberg and Carl & Brenda Loge for sponsoring the tournament this year.

Fishing Contest Rules

• All participants 16 and older must have a valid Minnesota fishing license.

•  Date and hours for the tournament are June 24,2023 between 5:40 am and 7 pm.

• This tournament is limited to East Battle Lake property owners and their guests.

• All anglers will launch from their own property.

• This is a “catch and keep” tournament for Northern Pike under 22 inches. All participants acknowledge and agree that they WILL NOT release any of these fish back to the lake. Recipes and cleaning tutorials will be provided.

• Winners will be determined in a raffle drawing. First prize is $1000. Second prize is $300. Third prize is $200.

• A boat will be issued a raffle ticket for every 10 Northern Pike under 22 inches. For example, at the count check-in a boat with 10 will receive 1 ticket, 20 will receive 2 tickets, 30 will receive 3 tickets.

• Any Northern Pike over 22 inches will not be counted as valid for the raffle. Minnesota fishing regulations for our zone require that all Northern Pike between 22 and 26 inches be returned to the lake. Consult the Zone 1 MN Fishing Regulations.

• Each angler can register no more than 10 Northern Pike caught on the day of the tournament. Consult MN Fishing Regulations (daily limit of 10).

• Total weight is not being calculated.

• The fish count for the raffle will take place between 4 pm and 7 pm on the long narrow beach property with Adirondack chairs on the southeast shore of the northern bay of the lake. There will be East Battle Lake Watershed banners on the property. The physical address is 23051 Chippewa Trail, Vining, MN.

• Weather permitting, the raffle drawing will take place at 7:30 pm on June 24th. In case of inclement weather, the drawing will take place at the East Battle Watershed Annual Meeting August 3rd at the Henning Community Center.

Please direct any questions to one of the following:

2022 Fun Day Pictures