Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Deegan Lahti, 11, of L’Anse tries to catch a rainbow trout at the fish pond at the Baraga County Lake Trout Festival Saturday.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette
Deegan Lahti, 11, of L’Anse tries to catch a rainbow trout at the fish pond at the Baraga County Lake Trout Festival Saturday.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette
Nathaniel Cadeau, 13, of L’Anse, plays Penguin Fish Fling at the Baraga County Lake Trout Festival.

By GARRETT NEESE

gneese@mininggazette.com

L’ANSE — Despite rain, residents came out for the annual Baraga County Lake Trout Festival in L’Anse Saturday.

The annual event is held in conjunction with the Keweenaw Bay Classic Fishing Tournament, which drew a record number of boats this year.

This is the 17th year for the festival. It began after a Baraga family that had been running a fishing tournament in the area asked then-owners of Indian Country Sports, Anne and Steve Koski, to take the tournament over.

After the first year, they changed the name of the tournament. Anne Koski continues to run the festival side with the county’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. Baraga County Next Gen Team, a group for young, local entrepreneurs, is running the fishing tournament.

“We now have 141 boats, and that’s the biggest in the state of Michigan,” Koski said. “The fishing is huge. The prizes that the men receive are huge. So that draws them in.”

Boats needed to return to shore by 3 p.m., while weigh-ins continued for the next two hours.

In the lake trout division, Bird Dog earned the top prize with 38.6 pounds; for salmon, it was SB 2.0 with 22.48 pounds.

Both boats also took home the largest fish in their divisions — 22.86 pounds for Bird Dog and 13 pounds for SB 2.0.

On the festival side, Koski said families are drawn to the free event. She credited community donors from L’Anse, Baraga and beyond.

“All of the bouncy houses are free, the popcorn’s free, the candy’s free,” she said. “The parents don’t have to pay for anything… I think it’s great we can provide all of these.”

Starting at noon, parents could browse vendors on the street, while kids could try a variety of bouncy castles and games.

Nathaniel Cadeau, 13, of L’Anse, tried out Penguin Fish Fling, where players stepped on a pedal to send a fish flying towards two baskets being carried by a penguin.

“I think it’s great,” he said of the festival. “It’s a really nice thing to experience in the community.”

At the fish pond, kids worked to reel in one of the 200 rainbow trout brought in for the occasion. The fish were brought in from a hatchery in Gaylord, said Samantha Holik, a fishery technician with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community who was helping run the pond.

“I just like seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces,” she said. “It’s cool. And then they get to go home and clean them up themselves and eat them if they so choose. It’s a good experience for them.”