Bitter cold Saturday diminishes expected crowd at this year’s Northern Challenge

by Dan McClelland

 This year’s Northern Challenge on Lake Simond had all the makings of hitting a record turn-out. That was until Mother Nature stepped in with an arctic blast, that had the mercury struggling to move out of the minuses. It hovered around zero degrees F. through the day, climbing up from minus 20 in Saturday’s wee hours.

In the weeks before the derby in the pre-registration work that was again handled by the folks at ROOST, it looked like the turn-out might hit the event high of 1,400 fisherman.

Ice conditions were solid, unlike several recent years when thin ice put the derby in jeopardy and caused its cancellation once.

Saturday’s forecast of the extreme cold turned many of the usually high number of late registrants away, apparently, and 755 was size of this year’s field.

“We were definitely down in numbers due to the weather, Organizer Scott LaLonde lamented the day after the very cold derby. This was Scott’s third year as the principle organizer. Earlier last week he came up from his winter residence in Florida just to run the event again and oversee the scores of volunteers who stage it every winter.

Mr. LaLonde said during the day 104 fish were caught, and all released back into the lake.

The Northern Challenge is by far Tupper Lake’s biggest winter event- drawing ice fishing enthusiasts from all over the Northeast. It puts visitors in town when there wouldn’t otherwise be any.

It brings tons of business to town on the first weekend of every February, filling every motel room here and in many towns around.

The folks at Evan and Siobhan Sloan’s Woodshed Restaurant on Park, for example, were packed with anglers for supper Friday Mrs. Sloan told us the next evening.

The biggest fish of the day- a 10.29 pound Northern Pike, which Mr. LaLonde called “a good-sized fish for our derby.” It was landed by Cayden Egelston in the third hour.

His fish bested last year’s heaviest pike that came in just under eight pounds.

If he purchased the lunker pool ticket which depending upon the entrants has earned the person with the heaviest fish of the day a tidy purse in the $4,000 range, plus hourly prize money.

The second heaviest fish caught Saturday was landed in the 10-11a.m. hour by Kevin Barrows. His pike weighed 7.83 pounds. Third heaviest fish of the day was caught by Dan Keck in the first hour. Dan’s fish weighed 7.37 pounds.

One of the top fishermen Saturday, however, was Tupper Lake’s Hudson Baldwin who landed the second heaviest pike in the first and second hours. His fish weighed 6.29 and 5.70 ounces, respectively, and earned Hudson twin $250 second place prizes.

In the past the big pike tipped the scales in the 12- and 13-pound range. It’s not uncommon to for the biggest pike to be eight or nine pounds.

“We had some good fish caught all day, many six- and seven pound winners all day long.”

“The Northern Derby went off as planned again this year...there were no hitches.” He said that is strong testimony to the many volunteers who donated many hours to its planning and operation.” He said the compliments from the ice fishermen were many and robust again this year. “People just love our derby, returning year after year.”