17th Annual NW Ice Fishing Festival held Jan. 16

MOLSON -   On January 16, the Oroville Chamber of Commerce sponsored the 2021 17th Annual NW Ice Fishing Festival, which focused on raising funds to support the other events and advertising we do throughout the year. The tournament was open to the public and well over 200 were in attendance with 166 registering to fish. During the festival, attendees fished, enjoyed Mai’s Bamboo Deli for food, were sledding, ice skating, and just enjoying being out with our community. 

Chamber Director, Karen Frisbie; Rob Lawrence from Lawrence Construction Services, Jera Donner from Pound Fitness, Taylor Maldonado, Jordan Waddell, Alyce Brown, Elder Kotter and Elder Munsey; were on hand to run the tournament. Taylor kept a beautiful bonfire going for a place to warm up, while Mai’s Bamboo Deli kept everyone’s bellies filled with warm food. 

The Grand Prize for the highest cumulative weight was $1,000 and went to Scott Lawd from Omak. He also took away the largest fish for 1st place with Dick Larson getting the 2nd and 3rd place fish for the adults. Kayla Ednie from Oroville won the Pontoon Boat donated by the Country Store in Oroville. The Youth had some very energetic anglers! Calvin Marcolin had the biggest fish winning 1st place, while Marley DeMarcus had the second and third largest fish for 2nd and 3rd place for the youth. 72 fish were caught in total and they weighed in at 67.06 lb. total.

 With the current restrictions we did a Facebook live event to announce the winners and are working to meet up to distribute the prizes. A leader board was kept in the judges area so everyone could keep up on what the numbers to beat were. This was our first year completely outdoors and it was a hit.

We are so thankful for our sponsors and community for supporting this tournament year after year and we look forward to an even better event next year. It has been incredible to see all the photos on line from the event this year and if you have some you would like to share we would love to see them. Email: orovillechamber@orovillewashington.com labeling them would be most helpful as well! Please see our ad with all of our sponsors listed and this will also be on our website at: www.orovillewashington.com. Ferry County EMS is always so accommodating to make sure we have ambulance service on hand if needed and this year we were also blessed to have Okanogan County Search and Rescue on site. It gives such peace of mind to know we have our bases covered in case of an emergency. Thank you. 

At the conclusion of the day it was a very quick departure from the lake since we were able to head down the hill and prepare for the Awards Live Video. We look forward to seeing you all next year on January 15, 2022 for the next tournament.