Brown trout missing the party, only two on leader board through the weekend

The first weekend of the Brown Trout Festival yielded two brownies, both caught on Sunday afternoon.

Nick Alexander brought in the first brown trout which weighed in at 14 pounds. Chris Fochman brought in the second which weighed in at 13.4 pounds.

Weighmaster Roger Barc said the number of brown trout are similar to the number caught during the first weekend last year.

Tournament Director Doug Niergarth said there is indication that fishing is up from last year.

"Last year we had a total of 10 brown trout caught, which is really down from years gone by," he said. "It kind of caught us by surprise."

Niergarth said he doubts that it's because the brown trout aren't there, he says fisherman are fishing for big brown trout, not just any brown trout.

He said brown trout are notoriously hard to catch and that it takes a special crew to catch such a finnicky and hard to locate fish.

"Now we don't see a lot of browns because there's not a lot of money for second place, but there is a lot of money for first place," Niergarth said.

He said that the crew that takes second place will still be happy but that they can't afford to go back and forth from north of Alpena to Alpena with the price of gas. He said crews will wait until they get a sizeable brown trout to bring it in.

Barc, who has been weigh master at the Brown Trout Festival for the last five years said the size and quality of the fish are up this year and are a lot better than the last five years.

"Walleye numbers are very good," he said.

That could be because the festival had it's first ever Two-day Walleye Extravaganza a tournament within the brown trout festival which ended Sunday afternoon.

Ben Skiba caught the biggest walleye which weighed in at 7.35 pounds. Skiba also was the winner of the tournament bringing in 50.65 pounds of walleye in the two days.

Bob Baughman, who came in second with 40.45 pounds of walleye, was fishing with Ed Stachowski of Canton, Mich. The two men are fishing buddies and have fished in other tournaments in the state.

Baughman said they did bad the first day and better on Sunday. Stachowski thought they did okay for his first time fishing here. Both Baughman and Stachowski said it was nice to see the fish in such good condition.

President of the Alpena Walleye Club Jim Leeseberg said overall he thought the fishermen did pretty good. Leeseberg said the weather was nice for fishing throughout the weekend, although it rained a little on Sunday morning.

Member of the Alpena Walleye Club Al Douglas said he had a slow day Saturday afternoon but caught seven