A big time bass fishing tournament is coming to North Bay. The 2 day event is being held on Lake Nipissing in late August and 200 anglers are expected here for the weekend.

It’s called the 2018 Ontario Bass Nation provincial qualifier.

Event chair Mathew Koprash says they’ve been working on this since November and beat two other clubs to win the bid.

He says it’s a boater and non boater competition.

“So the boater, owns, drives and operates the boat and the non boater participates off the back of the boat. There’s 2 different areas of competition. The top 10 boaters and the top 10 non boaters will move on to make Team Ontario.”
And Team Ontario will then head to the United States for another competition with the winners from that advancing to the BASS Master Classic.

He says the economic benefit to the community for holding this event is estimated to be from $500,000-$750,000.

Koprash says this is a championship sporting event.

“Anglers competing in this tournament will come up and spend about a week in pre-fishing. So you’ll see them out here spending 1 week just trying to find and locate fish. It’s not just the day going out there and catching them. We do our homework and time. It’s just like practicing for the Stanley Cup.”
He says there will be events for the public to check out during the weekend.

Koprash says there will be excitement when the boats leave the marina early in the morning and later in the day when they return for the weigh-in.