Mercer hosts first 'Can-Yak' fishing tournament

MERCER, Wis. — The waters of southern Iron County were the focus for fishermen with kayaks and canoes this weekend as Mercer held its first “Can-Yak” canoe and kayak fishing tournament and festival.

The tournament which began with registration on Friday and fishing on Saturday and Sunday provided an opportunity to bring visitors to the Mercer area in what is traditionally a down period, according to Tina Brunell, the executive director of the Mercer Area Chamber of Commerce and one of the organizers of the tournament.

“Mercer, what we are all about is everything you can do outdoors. We don’t have a lot of indoor attractions but what we do have is the outdoors. ... So we were kind of looking for a time of year that we have seen some vacancies in our rooms, which was our labor day weekend,” Brunell explained. “We don’t have your traditional ‘colorama’ (celebration of the leaves changing) ... many of our other surrounding communities have that, so we were kind of thinking ‘what could we plug in the fall?’ Labor day weekend, we saw ‘yes, we have visitors but not to our full potential’ so this was kind of a way to beef that up.”

Competitors were allowed to fish any Iron County lakes south of County Road G in either of the vessels that gave the tournament its name, according to tournament rules.

“(Competitors) had to be in a canoe or kayak. No shore fishing, no row boats. Strictly canoes or kayaks,” said Brunell.

The tournament was a catch-and-release format, meaning competitors had to take pictures of their fish next to a measuring stick using a camera phone.

Only camera phones were allowed, Brunell explained, since time stamps can be altered on regular cameras.

Participants were awarded one point for every quarter-inch of qualifying fish caught, Brunell said, with all species allowed as long as the fish met the state’s legal size requirements.

Unique in this tournament was the fact that participants were competing as individuals but they could also team up and have their scores averaged for the team competition.

There was also a competition to see if anyone could catch a “full fish,” according to Brunell, which consisted of catching one panfish, muskie, northern pike, walleye and bass.

The tournament had 44 participants and was won by Zach Wilson, of Mercer. Wilson, along with his teammate Mike Janeczko, took first in the team competition as well.

Wilson praised the tournament.

“It was so cool that the community and the chamber did something as unique as a can-yak,” Wilson told the Daily Globe. “It’s really a new movement in the state right now, and in the Midwest. It’s something new for our region and I think it will turn into a really big thing some day. The nice thing about Mercer, and Iron County, is it just has so many cool little wilderness lakes.”

Brunell was happy with the number of people out on Mercer’s waters as part of the competition.

“Overall for our first year it was a good turnout, we were very pleased with it.”

In addition to the actual tournament, the weekend included a mini-trade show with vendors showing fishing related products as well as seminars and demonstrations on Saturday, according to Brunell, and a performance on Sunday night by Joe Bucher and the Top Raiders. There were also several raffles that participants could enter to win a variety of prizes including a new kayak.

Bucher — who also has a fishing television show — and his band played a variety of blues, rock and jazz tunes, with a focus on blues and blues/rock songs.

In addition to providing an opportunity to bring visitors to Mercer, the festival was also a benefit for Fishing has No Boundaries, a non-profit that works to enable those with physical and mental disabilities to fish and get out on the water, according to the group’s vice president, JB Ellis.