Area anglers win $6,000 first prize at walleye tourney in Port Clinton

The father-son team of Michael and Scott Boswell has been fishing in tournaments for a few years now. On Saturday, they hit it big for the first time, winning the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament in Port Clinton. The Boswells weighed five fish totaling 34.88 pounds and won $6,000 for their top finish. Michael, who is retired, lives in Collins. Scott, a Western Reserve High School graduate, lives in Norwalk and works for Kokosing Construction Company. The Boswells, whose best previous finish on the LEWT circuit was a top-10 finish in 2019 at Magee East, beat 80 teams in the second LEWT event of the year. "Our first spot was a bust, so we went to Plan B and pulled in one real nice fish and got the rest of our five and went hunting for big fish," Scott Boswell said. "We were lucky enough to find them." Their biggest walleye weighed 10 pounds, 3 ounces. That would've won the tourney's big fish competition, but Scott didn't enter that portion of the event. "I'm a firm believer that it's bad luck," he said. "It seems that every time I do, I don't have a good tournament." The eventual champs didn't feel like they had a winning total when they headed to the scales Saturday afternoon. "We did not expect to win," Scott said. "We had one fish under four pounds. Typically, when you have one that small somebody always edges you." That didn't happen. The Boswells' total was three pounds heavier than second-place finishers Edward Bogan and Steve Tomlinson, who checked in at 31.88 pounds. Nicholas and Gary Zart took third at 31.38 pounds. The team of Tim Bock and Larry Germovsek won the big fish competition with a 10.13-pound catch. The LEWT event drew 81 teams that weighed 394 fish. Total weight was 1,895.28 pounds. Scott Boswell said the fishing this spring on Lake Erie has been "up and down." "The water's been really disturbed; it hasn't been a normal year for anyone," he said. "I'm not a pro, but the fish are doing a different pattern, I believe." The next LEWT event will be May 15 in Huron. The Boswells plan to fish in that tourney as well as the June 5 event in Lorain. The season championship will be held in late November in Cleveland. The two-day Masters Walleye Circuit event held Friday and Saturday in Port Clinton was won by Mark Lemke and Walter Price, who weighed 10 fish totaling 62.2 pounds. Lemke and Price, who won a $16,400 payout in the national circuit's Lake Erie stop, were consistent, weighing in at 31.1 pounds both days. That was less than what the Boswells caught in the one-day tournament. "Cloud Nine, I guess," Scott said when asked how it felt to win. "My dad texted me earlier (Monday) to say he still can't believe it."