Northern Challenge expected to draw hundreds to town this weekend
by Dan McClelland
After the COVID years and last year’s cancellation of the event because of mild weather and thin ice, the Tupper Lake Sportsmen’s Club’s Northern Challenge is expected to be back in robust fashion this Saturday. Expected is a big return to the banner fishing derby crowds of decades ago.
The Northern Challenge draws ice anglers from all over the Northeast and has since its inception in the 1980s by then Tip Top Sports Shop owners Chris Delair and Mike Demars. It is the biggest fishing derby here of the year. The Tupper Lake Rod and Gun Club, now the Tupper Lake Sportsmen’s Club, has been running the derby very well each year since it took over after those first couple of years. The Challenge brings hundreds of ice fishermen and their families to Tupper Lake on one of the otherwise sleepiest weekends of the year.
This year the event has a brand new director, Scott LaLonde, who is succeeding Dave McMahon who retired last year after running the big event for over 20 years.
Mr. LaLonde has been busy planning the 2025 event with his committee of Sportsmen’s Club leaders since almost the last one was held last February.
“The planning for the event has been going extremely well” in recent months, an excited Mr. LaLonde told the Free Press Friday.
“We’ve been getting a ton of calls from new people and from many who have been coming for years.”
Conditions for the big outdoor event which dots Simond Pond with an entire village of ice shanties look very good.
Mr. LaLonde said as of early last week the pond was covered with over 11 inches of ice. “And we’ve had nothing but cold nights since then!” More cold temperatures this week are expected to grow the ice depth.
This time last year saw relatively balmy temperatures for weeks which produced a lake covering so thin organizers were forced to cancel the fishing. Many fishermen and their families came anyway to participate in the always popular raffles associated with the annual event.
“We needed this year’s temperatures to get us back on track” as a big derby, a very pleased director said.
“We missed last year and the year before that it was 35 degrees below and before that COVID, so many people are looking forward to coming back” in conditions that produced big Northern Challenges.
Saturday’s forecast is calling for sunshine in the afternoons, with the mercury climbing into the high teens and an overnight low of minus four. It reckons to be perfect ice fishing weather.
Over the years the Northern Challenge typically attracted 1,000 or more participants. Some years it fell below that, but the record number of anglers is about 1,400. Mr. LaLonde predicted, based on the calls he and his committee members have received, that 1,200 anglers is a number they could easily hit this year.
Although set backs of the pandemic and the warm winters in recent years have sort of messed with the records, he said he believes this is the 30th or 31st year that the Challenge has been drawing anglers here.
The door prizes have been substantially upgraded this year with many new types of fishing and ice fishing paraphernalia. There are 40 or more prize packages up for grabs, as well as the two all terrain vehicles and other piece of valuable equipment, each year encourages many non-fishermen to enter the derby.
Fishing prizes this year will be $500 for the biggest fish each hour of the tournament. Second heaviest fish any hour will produce $200 for the person who catches it and third-heaviest every hours wins the person who catches it $100. Each hour too $50 goals to the fisherman who catches the lucky fish. A drawing determines the winner of all those who enter fish each hour, Mr. LaLonde explained.
The prizes available that day will again be increased by the number of organizations selling chances on 50-50s and such from inside the registration room itself when anglers register on Friday or early Saturday or later down by the shore.
Many people here pay the derby’s $35 registration fee just to be eligible for the many prizes Saturday. Those who fish, however, are best advised to buy the $10 lunker ticket for the heaviest fish of the day.
Mr. LaLonde remembers a derby some years ago when the winner of a first place fish won him $500 the hour he landed is fish. But because he didn’t enter the lunker pool, that’s all he won. The guy who caught the heaviest fish of the day, who spent $10 to enter the lunker pool, went home with over $4,000.
The wisdom there points to the need for everyone who fishes Saturday to spend the extra $10 if they want to win big.
The award ceremony at the close of the derby will be shorter than last year’s because most of the door prizes will be drawn and the winners posted on a big board at noon. That way the winners can collect them throughout the afternoon at the prize trailer. That’s traditionally how the prizes have been drawn.
The new director thinks returning to the old noon drawing of the door prizes will be welcomed by the anglers, many of whom are always anxious to get headed home or back to their motel room after a full day of fishing on the ice of Simond Pond.