James Bay Walleye fishing tournament

This tournament is the biggest walleye fishing tournament in Quebec. This catch and release tournament will take place from June 19th to June 28th, 2008 and it will be the 9th edition! This tournament has been originally organized in 1999 by Mr Richard Laplante and it's held in a little town named Chapais. This town is located in the southeast part of the James bay region and the population is about 2,000. The main site of the tournament is located about 6.2 miles from Chapais on the Bank of lake Opémiska. To get to the town of Chapais, it will be a drive on paved road of about 435 miles from Montreal.


Over 110,000$ in prizes and bursaries

There are two main categories in this tournament: Amateur and Pro-VIP. Within the amateur category, there would be more then 80,000$ in prizes in the different contests: Opemiska contest, James Bay contest, Feminine contest and the youth contest. The professional category is 30,000$ in prizes and there is a maximum a 75 teams.


Lake Opemiska

This water surface stretches over 11 miles in length and an average width of 2 miles. Its very irregular contours total a perimeter of 92 miles to give a total surface area of approximately 48 square miles. This lake constitutes in fact a widening of the Chibougamau River, which flows into the Rivers Waswanipi and Nottaway. Its surface includes many great bays, islands and peninsulas.


Tournament spokesman: Normand Byrns

Normand Byrns is a very well known professional angler and hunter in Quebec and he has his own fishing shows: Good Fishing (Bonne pêche in French) and Good hunting (Bonne chasse). While being the spokesman of this walleye fishing tournament, Normand takes the time to participate in activities with youngsters to introduce them to this passionate world of walleye fishing. Normand is also a great stand-up comic and he always animate the closing hight of the tournament and present the winners of each category with lot of surprises and a great deal of humor. Every year Normand has an outdoor movies tourney and I always enjoy attending those fishing and hunting video's event with my best fishing buddies Marc Poirier. The 2008 registration will start in April, you can visit the tournament website for more information: James Bay Walleye Fishing Tournament.


This year I already have a major walleye fishing trip planned on the Cabonga Reservoir in June. I think next year I will try to convince one of my fishing buddy to participate in this main walleye fishing tournament.