Sanders County Ledger - Your Best Source For Sanders County News

After three weekends of fishing beneath the snowcapped Mission Mountains on Flathead Lake, Spring Mack Days anglers' total lake trout count stands at 13,417. This is the largest three-week total since 2019.

Mack Days Fishing events are sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and are sanctioned by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. The Fishing Events are a management tool used to reduce the non-native lake troutpopulation in Flathead lake. Increasing the native bull trout and westslope cutthroat is important for the future of Flathead Lake fisheries by helping to sustain populations of the bull trout and westslope cutthroat into the future.

Turning in tagged fish the third week were: Travis Banyai, Kalispell, $500; $100 tags, Tyler Varga, Matthew Mitts, Brodie Smith, Luke Smith, Collin Mitts, all Kalispell anglers, and Missoula angler Jack Colyer.

Anglers rods were busy Friday and Saturday bringing in a few high lake trout numbers the first two days of the weekend. Friday the total was 1,390. Kalispell anglers Kolton Turner and Jason Mahlen had 100 entries each. Saturday’s total came in at 1,723-Kolton again had a 100 fish day. Sunday numbers were down with many anglers coming off the rough water early. Sunday's total was 850. The weekend total came to 3,963.

Kolton Turner is in first place in the Top Twenty category with 875; 2nd, Bob Turner, Kalispell, 760; 3rd, Jason Mahlen, 705; 4th, Jerry Benson, Plains, 508; 5th, Clint Speer, Kalispell, 501; 6th, Jake North, Denton, 455; 7th Tyler Varga, Kalispell, 442; 8th, Gene Corne, Kalispell, 426; 9th Ken Varga, Kalispell, 425; 10th, Mike Benson, Lonepine.

Youth angler Eli Yang from Missoula is leading the 12 and under category with 31 entries, Mason Cusker of Bigfork has 4, Gage Spring of Alberton and James Kuchera of Kalispell have 2 apiece..

The 13-17 category has Brodie Smith of Kalispell leading with 226 entries. He is currently in 18th place overall. KennedyYang of Missoula is second with 31 and Lane Braza of Missoula is third with 14.

Julie Perkins of Kalispell leads the women anglers with 92, Shirley Batz of Kalispell has 31, Melissa Triano of Bigfork has 24 and Connie Jones of Kalispell and Rebecca Spring of Alberton each have 15.

Kolton Turner has turned in the smallest lake trout so far at 166mm (6.5”). He also has the second smallest lake trout at 175mm (7”).