FOND DU LAC (NBC 26) — The 44th annual Walleye Weekend started with a splash!
The three-day event at Lakeside Park is Fond du Lac’s biggest fundraiser of the year and benefits 36 nonprofits in the area.
Fond du Lac Festivals Executive Director Pete Wilke said volunteers and the nonprofits are at the heart of the festival.
“They help with the food stands operating here, they help with the tournaments, family-friendly events and activities, the shows. Nonprofits are what make this festival run,” Wilke said.
As its name suggests, Walleye Weekend is all centered around fish. This year marks the 45th Mercury National Walleye Tournament.
“This is where it all started, was with a fishing tournament,” Mercury National Walleye Tournament Director Ken Krueger said. “Everything else kind of grew around the fishing tournament over the last 45 years and every year the set-up, the events that are held around us have been improving and growing over the years. And everything at Lakeside Park seems like it's covered with some type of event for a family to come and do things.
This year’s tournament had 387 fishing teams, which took off at 6:30 Saturday for the first day of fishing.
Brian Arneson and Chris Pickhardt have been competing in the tournament as a team for almost two decades.
“We grew up right in Fond du Lac, so we've been fishing in the lake our whole lives,” Arneson said. “We all grew up doing the little kid tournament, watching the big boats come in, and as soon as we could get in, we started fishing.”
They won first place in 2015 and third place in 2017. This year, they’re hoping for top ten.
“We'd love a second [place]. So, we got a first-place plaque, and a third-place plaque hanging, and we like to fill in that gap there.,” Arneson said.
This year, whoever catches the five fish that weigh the most gets a boat worth 50,000 and second place gets $10,000! Krueger said they will award prizes all the way down to 80th place.
But that’s not all there is to Walleye Weekend. The festival includes three stages of live music, a dog-jumping competition, games for kids, and lots of food (including 3,000 lbs. of cheese at the Kiwanis tent!).
The event kicked off Friday and goes on until Sunday at 5:30.
