The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Outdoors

Sunfish takes top prize at Big Bobber

Minnesota State graduate student Matt Bright took home the top prize at the 2010 Humminbird Big Bobber Ice Fishing Contest Saturday.
Bright, 24, an art student and avid ice fisherman, won $2,500 for his whopping .56 pound sunfish.
“Can you believe a liberal won a ice fishing contest?” he said.
Bright’s victory didn’t come easy. With 11 minutes left in the tournament, Sam Schutt weighed a .50 pound perch, good for second place.
“This has been the most agonizing 10 minutes of my life,” Bright said as he waited for the final horn to sound. He said he plans to buy an electric guitar with the winnings.
Gayland Hamilton of Kasota won $500 for 50th place with a .08 perch caught 14 minutes into the tournament, and Jeffrey Flynn of Mankato won $1,000 through a drawing for 100th place.
A total of 69 fish were caught (63 perch, five sunfish, one walleye).
— Doug Monson

Related Photos

  • Yuzuru Abe (left) and Keiichi Hara, both of Japan, are the two stars of Super Sanma’s Karakuri-TV, a reality television show on Tokyo Broadcast System. The pair was fishing in the first of two ice-fishing contests during the weekend. Pat Christman

    Japanese fishermen.jpg

February 7, 2010

Reality TV show films at Big Bobber contest

Duo from Japan experiences ice fishing, walking on lake, getting skunked

By Doug Monson Free Press copy editor

LAKE WASHINGTON — Keiichi Hara and Yuzuru Abe aren’t your typical contestants in a mid-sized fishing tournament in the middle of Minnesota.

But on Saturday, the longtime friends fished the Humminbird Big Bobber Ice Fishing Contest sponsored by the Minnesota State athletic department.

Hara and Abe, both 25, are the stars of the Japanese-based Super Sanma’s Karakuri-TV, a reality television show that airs on Tokyo Broadcasting System.

Together, the tandem enters contests around the world and are filmed trying to win these unique tournaments/contests.

How’d they find Lake Washington and the Big Bobber contest?

“We are traveling the entire world looking for prized-based contests,” said the show’s director, Misaki Yousuke. “We found this contest and it fit our schedule very well, and we had a chance to win here.”

On Friday, the group met local angler Keith Westphal and fished from his fish house on Lake Washington.

“I set up their poles, showed them how to fish,” Westphal said. “I let them use the auger and drill some holes; you know, let them experience some things they’ve never done before.”

Westphal said Abe was the only one who caught a fish during Friday’s outing.

“I was very excited when I caught it,” Abe said through the group’s interpreter, Kei Schzuzawa.

Schzuzawa said the group was trying to get used to cold temperatures. He said 32 degrees is about as cold as they experience in Japan.

Hara wasn’t lucky enough to catch a fish during either outing, but he still enjoyed the contest. He is a long way from a home that includes a wife and two young children, a situation he says is “very sad.”

“I have their picture with me in my backpack,” he said.

Hara and Abe were both chosen by TBS for their roles in the reality show, but both were ready for where the road would take them.

“I wanted to experience all the culture in the world and tell my kids about the experience,” Hara said.

Abe echoed those sentiments.

“It’s a very good experience and it is going to be a great fortune.”

Neither Abe or Hara had experienced walking on a frozen lake before crossing on to Lake Washington, something both said they enjoyed.

“It’s the fist time (Abe) has ever walked out on a lake,” Schzuzawa said. “But in his home in northern Japan, he had a swimming pool and sometimes it froze over.”

The pair had little time to soak in their trip to the Mankato area and Lake Washington. Skunked Saturday (both by the fish and in the drawing) the duo will try their luck at fishing again, today in Wisconsin.

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