Fort Kent International Muskie Derby

FORT KENT, Maine (WAGM) – Today was the first day of the Fort Kent International Muskie Derby, which spanned the entire St. John Valley and even into parts of Canada.

“The derby takes place on the St. John River and all of its tributaries, from the Grand Falls entering the river to Bow Lake, Baker Lake, Glazier Lake and the St. Francis River,” said Dennis Cyr.

Although this is the Muskie Derby, there is another species of fish that is consistently caught here.

“The bass are coming pretty fast. We’ve already caught three muskellunge bass this morning and five big bass,” Cyr said.

This tournament will be held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Originally the forecast predicted rain all weekend. Although it was bad today, the rest of the weekend will be better.

“The weather was good early in the morning, the fishermen were lucky. It started raining around 9 o’clock. From 9 o’clock until noon it rained a little bit, but tomorrow is going to be a good day, so they’re going out on the river,” Cyr said.

Registration is still open for this tournament, many county members are participating, but anglers from all over the east also come.

“We normally get about 300 anglers every year, we expect to get about the same amount this year, we get people from all over, we have a family from New York that fishes the derby every year and just left. They brought back a couple of bass and are going back tomorrow,” Cyr said.

A new hurdle this year is zebra mussels. Fishermen are encouraged to remove zebra mussels from their boats. To ensure that the invasive zebra mussels stay out of Maine.

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