Fine weather gives Mack Days best weekend yet

Great fishing weather made the fourth weekend of the 2009 Spring Mack Days the most successful weekend so far in the seven weekend event.

Turning in three 50-fish limit days moved 16-year-old Stephen Neath of Pablo to the top of the leaderboard in the fishing event. But only three fish separate the top two anglers. Paul Haines of Ronan moved into second place with 431 to Neath's 434.

Haines had a 50-limit day on Friday, had 27 on Saturday and 43 on Sunday.

The final top angler will be the one with the best 12-day average in the 20 regular days — the last day is a separate day. The top ten anglers will receive prizes from $650 to $200 depending on their placing. Holding third place is Dean Vaughan of Charlo with 234, fourth is Mike Benson of Hot Springs with 198 and fifth place is Dan Smith of Hot Springs with 194.

There have bee 6,917 total entires in the event, and the weekend total of 2,531 is the second-highest day of the event's history. More than 700 anglers are entered in Spring Mack Days.

Over $45,000 in cash and prizes sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and sanctioned by Montana FWP will be given to successful anglers on the last day, April 26. All it takes is one fish entered for a chance in the lottery style drawing.

Mack Days are a tool used to help reduce non-native lake trout numbers in Flathead Lake and to restore numbers of native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout in the lake.

The large fish category is still led by Captain Bob Orsua of Mo Fisch Charters in Lakeside with his 43", 31.1 lb. lake trout entry. Smallest lake trout entry is still Joe O'Hara-St. Ignatius with a 173mm lake trout. Stephen Naethe holds on to second with a 217mm laker.

Lady anglers are right in there with the guys. Nicole Peter's sits in 10th place overall and leads the ladies with 163. Susanne Albrecht of Polson is second with 71. Bigfork's Janet Smith is in sixth place with 36.

Five $100 tagged lake trout were entered by Mike Benson of Hot Springs, Joe O'Hara of St. Ignatius, Jim Auger and Larry Schmill of Missoula, and Paul Soukup of Ronan during the three day weekend. There are still over 1,000 tagged lake trout with values from $100 to $5,000.

Go to http://www.mackdays.com for more information or call 406-883-2888 ex. 7294 or 7282.