Fishing season is well and truly underway in the southeast and to help get it kickstarted, there was a walleye tournament at Boundary Dam over the weekend. Fishers dotted the reservoir on Saturday and hauled in dozens of walleye over the course of the day. 

"It was awesome actually," said Mike Halirewich, Fisheries Chairman with the Estevan Wildlife Foundation. "The weather wasn't the best, it was cool and windy, but the fishermen had a great time. We had lots of teams report catching upwards of 80 or 90 fish in the eight hour day."

The fish were certainly biting, and that was good news for the teams that did show up. Their numbers were down a little bit from years past, but that was something organizers expected given the current conditions surrounding the pandemic. 

"We had 40 teams register and 38 teams were out on the water," Halirewich said. "So we were down from most years but we expected that with this COVID going on... We have teams from Manitoba that usually come and teams from the US, they couldn't come of course."

Teams prohibited from traveling weren't the only ones who didn't show up, as some teams from elsewhere in Saskatchewan opted against making the journey. Despite that, they still had what Halirewich called a great turnout, and some people had especially good days. 

"The largest fish 5.18 pounds, so that's a decent sized walleye for boundary," he said. "Winning weight was over 20 pounds so we had a very good year."

Fishing season officially began in the southeast on May, about two months after ice fishing season came to a close. Environment Canada predicts very little rain in the region over the next week (tomorrow's possible storm excepted) so there will be lots of opportune weather for getting out on the lake.