Flathead Lake Mack Days - 2014 final results

The final results are in for Flathead Lake's Mack Days fishing derby.  The winner for the second year in a row was Jason Mahlen of Kalispell, who turned in 1,801 lake trout, and averaged 70.1 fish per day over his 18 best days on the water.  That's a lot of fish per hour.  Mahlen won a total of more than $10,000 in various aspects of the derby.  For general information about Mack Days, see http://www.mackdays.com/ .  For a Missoulian article about Mack Days, see http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/kalispell-angler-wins-second-straight-mack-days-earns-more-than/article_4286daec-dfb9-11e3-8650-0019bb2963f4.html .   For the 2014 statistics, see http://www.mackdays.com/Statistics/spring2014/index.html . The numbers at the top of the chart are pretty impressive, but don't forget to page down towards the bottom of the chart, where you will see some numbers which are more like my typical numbers.  Which shows that you definitely aren't guaranteed to catch lake trout in Flathead Lake (or anyplace else, for that matter), but that if you figure out how to catch lake trout, you can catch a lot of lake trout.

The final results are in for Flathead Lake's Mack Days fishing derby.  The winner for the second year in a row was Jason Mahlen of Kalispell, who turned in 1,801 lake trout, and averaged 70.1 fish per day

Impressive, but it has me wondering what I'd do with 1800 lake trout. Are these an undesirable or invasive species they're trying to control?

Lake trout are regarded as an invasive species in Flathead Lake, and both the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are trying to reduce lake trout numbers in order to protect bull trout and other native species.  There is some information about those efforts in the sidebar articles listed next to the Missoulian article about Mack Days.

The limit for lake trout on Flathead Lake is 100 fish daily and in possession, with no size limits in the south half of the lake.  While lake trout are very tasty, high-numbers fisherman turn in most of their fish, which are processed and donated to food banks.  That also allows them to avoid the processing hassle.  Can you imagine fishing all day, filleting and freezing 70 or so fish in the evening, and then going fishing the next day?  Way better to turn in all but a couple.