Riggs, Schmidt Reel In Second Governor's Cup

For the second time in three years, Glasgow's Todd Riggs and Ken Schmidt won the Montana Governor's Cup Walleye Tournament at Fort Peck Lake, beating 83 teams from nine different states to claim the title.

Despite two beautiful days on the lake, the winning totals didn't come near to matching last year's high catch of nearly 62 pounds, but with talented groups wildly fluctuating from big catches to near goose eggs, two consistent rounds by Riggs and Schmidt were enough to claim the top spot in the tournament. The two caught a little more than 21 pounds each of the two days to finish with a total weight of 43.44 pounds.

The Thomases led the tournament after a huge first day. The team caught 30.48 pounds to take the top spot to start the tournament, just ahead of last year's champions Don and Myla Barton, of Gillette, Wyo., who caught 25.62 pounds of walleye. The Bartons were aided by coming up with the big fish on Friday, a 13.25 pound walleye. Saco's Leroy Costin and Buck Taylor were in third place after Day 1 with a catch of 25.30 pounds. Riggs and Schmidt were in sixth place with a a catch of 21.68 pounds.

The key to Day 2 was consistency, as most of the top 10 teams struggled to net a big catch. Riggs' and Schmidt's catch of 21.76 pounds, third most on the second day was plenty enough to carry them to the top spot by a wide margin. No other team in the top 10 on Friday caught more than eight pounds on Saturday while all but two failed to catch more than five pounds.

With a total of 43.44 pounds, Riggs and Schmidt beat Jordan's Clint and Layne Thomas by nine pounds at the final weigh-in, a run-away victory to claim the Governor's Cup title and the $6,000 grand prize. 

Glasgow's Steve Bell and Lisa Ball caught 24.68 pounds of walleye on Saturday to finish with the top catch of the day on Saturday and make up for a sub-par first day to finish in sixth place for the tournament.

Richey's Harlyn Olson and Clinton Volbrecht made the biggest improvement of the tournament on Saturday, finishing second on the day with a catch of 23.30 pounds after coming up with nothing on Friday. The big day moved them into 20^th place and earned the team the Zero To Hero/Coolest Under Pressure award for biggest catch after netting a zero on the first day. 

The biggest walleye of the tournament was caught on Saturday by the team of Robert and Danny Nygard, bagging a 14.72 pounder. The largest northern pike caught at the tournament was a 39 inch behemoth caught by Craig Teal and Keeley Montgomery.

The Bartons were awarded the Mixed Couples Award for their fourth place catch of 30.10 pounds. A mixed couple was defined for the tournament as any team that did not consist of two males over the age of 16. The Goldon Hook Award was given to Bruce Glennie and Lynn Erickson.

On Thursday, Jamie and Georgia Atkinson beat 10 other teams in the Guys-n-Gals Tournament, catching 10.82 pounds of walleye. Brent and Bobby Smith finished in second, catching 3.24 pounds. The teams of Shane and Stacey Rhodes and Fuzz and Kaydee Carnahan tied in the Northern Pike end of the competition.

In the Kids Fishing Tournament, Wolf Point's Jerimiah Paine had the large catch of the day, with a total of 4.72 pounds of fish, including a huge four pounder on Saturday at Kiwanis Park. The big catch won Jerimiah the 10- and 11-year-old division. Great Falls' Dale Morehouse won the 12 and up division catching .74 pounds of fish with Glendive's Vail Gibbs finishing first in the 8-9 year division. Glasgow's Daley Aune won the 6-7 years division win a catch of .40 pounds and Lustre's Brayden Redding caught .12 pounds of fish to win the under-5 division.

The Governor's Cup is part of the Fort Peck Lake Championship Series, which concludes its season on July 24-25 at the Hell Creek Walleye Tournament.