Giving it their all, and lovin’ every minute of it!
A look at the winning duo from the 2007 North American Ice Fishing Championship
By Tim Lesmeister

What drives two men to haul themselves and a load of gear from downstate New York to the icy prairies of western Minnesota? The same thing that attracted scores of other competitive anglers from around the country (including many from the Empire State): the North American Ice Fishing Championship. In a competition dominated numbers-wise by Minnesotans and anglers from around the Upper Midwest, New York had three teams place in the top 10.

Rich Stachurski of Middletown, N.Y., and Kevin Riley, of Glen Spey, won the 2007 event and its $10,000 first prize, held on Lake Henry in Alexandria, Minn., Dec. 15 and 16. They chalk up the win to a lot of work, every minute of which they enjoyed.

“We both love to compete and ice fish, so we viewed the trip as a vacation with chance of winning 10,000,” Riley, 44, said. “It worked out pretty well!”

Riley and Stachurski notched the victory despite being unable to visit Lake Henry during the open water season for some serious research and prefishing. Their win clearly illustrates the power of off-water research that folks like Dave Genz have been demanding of hard water anglers for years.

“I wish we had time and money to fish it more in person, but we did most of our research via lake maps, viewing local and regional websites, and by doing a lot of phone interviewing,” said Riley, a telephone repairman by day. “The power of the Internet truly is remarkable.”

That said, the pair arrived early to study the lake firsthand the Tuesday before the competition began on Saturday, Dec. 15. Riley said he and Stachurski take pride in putting together a gameplan, but the final days before tip-off helped modify what they’d learned.

Riley and Stachurski, 48, and an electrician by trade, began fishing together six years ago when Stachurski went looking for a fishing guide on the Delaware River. He’d fished during his younger days, but then had focused his recreational time on hunting. After a friend convinced him to take a salmon-fishing trip, Stachurski realized how much he loved fishing and asked himself why he wasn’t hitting the water more.

“I got on a kick to catch different species, and so I looked up a guide for shad fishing on the Delaware, and Kevin’s was the first name I found,” Stachurski said. “We hit it off on that trip and I asked him if he ever just fished for fun.”

Riley said he did indeed fish for fun, and the two struck up a fishing partnership that has continued ever since. Eventually, after seeing the Ice Team magazine and studying the tactics that were quietly revolutionizing the hard water sport, Riley convinced Stachurski to try ice fishing. Fishing southeast New York, the pair has built experience accessing private lakes and ponds where they’ve pursued perch, crappies, bluegills, walleyes, and chain pickerel. They’re looking forward to traveling into northern New York for lake trout.

At Riley’s suggestion, the pair fished its first Trap Attack event in 2004, finishing way down the pack. They eventually qualified for a North American championship held at Silver Lake, N.Y. The 2007 Championship was the third visit for Riley and the second for Stachurski. (Riley called the 2006 Championship, held on Lake Carlos, also in the Alexandria area, “the roughest fishing trip of my life.) They qualified for last year’s North American championship after finishing fifth at a Michigan Trap Attack tournament early in 2007.

Though officially open on two Alexandria-area lakes – Lake Henry and Lake Agnes – almost all fishing occurred on Henry, Riley said. Teams weighed a limit of 16 fish daily – eight bluegills and eight crappies. On Day One, the pair was in ninth place with 5.11 pounds of fish, despite registering a limit. Like most participants, they’d encountered small, albeit active fish all day, but Riley liked their chances going into Day Two.

“We felt good going into Sunday,” Riley said. “We knew one fish would put us right back in it. Over a great steak dinner Saturday night, we had a lot of confidence and decided we’d fish the same area.”

On the first day, Riley said, fish were active and “everything we used work.” He describes them both as “tight-lining, line watchers.” Stachurski believes that the cloudier conditions of Lake Henry during the event may have leveled the playing field for the New York teams, who frequently fish such conditions back home. 

“A lot of the better fishermen are from Minnesota and Michigan, and they do a lot of sight-fishing,” he said. “On this lake everyone fished 20 feet of water, and it wasn’t all crystal clear. We really had to concentrate on the rod tips and Vexilar for anything subtle.”

On Sunday, the team found the bluegills and crappies again, but the fish turned increasingly negative as the morning unfolded. By afternoon, Riley was even dead sticking the fish at times because the fishing pressure clearly was shutting down the action. A midmorning catch of a .63-pound bluegill boosted the team’s confidence.

“That’s not a bomber by any means, but for that tournament, I knew it could help us make up some ground,” Riley said.

It did. The pair finished the tournament with 10.63 pounds of fish, compared to 10.33 pounds in second place, which came from another New York team – Mike Chase of Milford, N.Y., and Steve Eichler of Franklin, N.Y., who claimed the $5,000 runner-up prize. Another New York squad, Rich Renard and John Battistella, finished 10th with 9.7 pounds of fish.

Throughout the tournament, Riley and Stachurski relied heavily on Lindy jigs, Wolf Ram jigs, and a presentation that Genz has been citing more frequently: plastics. Riley said almost everyone at the event was jigging, and spikes and waxworms tipped nearly everything they dropped down the hole. Even though the fish ran small, Riley was amazed at the volume of fish activity.

“On Saturday when we got to a spot where we’d had luck prefishing, I dropped my electronics, and it lit up like a X-mass tree,” he said. “Fishing in those kind of conditions is a lot of fun.”

While being interviewed for this article, Stachurski could be heard prepping for a January event in Brooklyn, Michigan. He calls the Minnesota win “like a dream,” and he said relishes the opportunity to compete against the top ice anglers against the world and call the gurus he sees on TV “friends.”

“It’s very addicting; I can’t stop buying stuff,” he said, chuckling. “We went out there shooting for top five and didn’t dream we’d win. I’ve met a lot of great people along the way, too.”

Riley credits the success of Team Reel ’Em In (named after Riley’s guide service www.reelemin.us) for following the modern Ice Team approach to hard-water fishing. The focus on mobility, communicating the behavior of the fish, and constantly analyzing locations and conditions really has altered the pair’s ice fishing philosophy from a decade ago, he said.

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