30th Annual Fishing Derby set to take place this weekend

REPUBLIC — The Michigamme River will once again be the site of an annual fishing derby.

The 30th Annual Republic Sportsman’s Club Fishing Derby will be taking place this weekend, and fishermen will see some differences than in the past years. The club adapting to the COVID–19 crisis by taking some special precautions to make sure the event can carry on safely, in order to still help out the community.

“The community benefits, we support the DNR as much as we can, and the different activities we do, we do a lot of cleaning, we have parks in the area that we sponsor and do events for, and of course we have this annual fishing derby we put on every year,” said Craig Van Beek, President of the Republic Sportsman’s Club. “This year was going to be our big year. We were planning on a banner 30th year celebration, unfortunately COVID put restrictions on that, so we decided as a club to back down from the larger celebration we were going to have and we’re sizing things down this year.”

There will be social distancing measures in place, as well as a hand sanitizing station. Even though the club is downsizing the event this year, there is still plenty to do over the weekend, which features a lot more than just fishing.

“We still on Friday night will have our parade as we normally do,” said Van Beek. “Also Friday night we have a band, so we will have our band. And then on Saturday w’ll have the fishing tournament and the band, and we’ll also have fireworks in the evening, and a bonfire.”

Registration for the derby will start at 6 p.m. this Friday, and the parade will begin at 7. More details can be found on the Annual Fishing Derby Facebook page.