The Element Custom Baits Tournament on the Red River took place on January 12, 2025. Qualifying event #1 on the Road to the 2025 Busch Beer Icebreaker Elite Series Championship saw the defending champions from last year’s tour finale, Trevor Hiebert and Chad Unrau, off to a roaring start in defense of their title.
The Winkler, MB duo are steadily making the case to be the new consensus top-ranked competitive hardwater teams in the country. Picking up exactly where they left off, Hiebert and Unrau started the season with an absolute banger only minutes into the competition scoring a 32.25″ walleye for a 14.08lbs lead on the field. This record-breaking fish was later confirmed to be the longest walleye scored ever in the history of the Icebreaker/Keystone events.
The Red River has long been notorious for being a first-ice hotspot in December, then drastically slowing down in catch rate once January rolls around. Many observers were predicting a tough bite and teams aiming to simply score a full bag. However, with 31 pairs of the best greenback ice anglers competing, it was no surprise to anyone that there ended up being 154 fish scored including six Manitoba Master Anglers and sixteen full limits of five walleye.
It was an exceptionally frigid day on the ice with temperatures dipping below -35C. The fishing itself remained hot though with submissions pouring in steady for most of the morning. Weighmaster Mike Dotoli exclaimed, “I don’t have time to be cold, everyone keeps sending fish in!” Statsmaster Divine Labaupa meanwhile was kept busy updating the Live Leaderboard every few minutes. The eventual winners lead the tournament wire-to-wire, but the rest of the standings were a suspenseful battle right to the last minute.
The last catch of the day came in at exactly the 4:00PM end-time with mere seconds to go before rolling over to 4:01PM. The team of Devin Fosty and Shawn Johnson frantically reeled a literal last-minute fish in and managed to snap a photo to send off in time. “Oh lord my heart can’t take this,” laughed Johnson later at Scoring Headquarters. “The fish got stuck under the hole and we knew time was running out. I reached in there and yanked her out!” That 24.50″ walleye pushed them from 20th place up to 13th banking valuable points towards qualifying for the Championship which only twenty teams will make.
The Top 5 teams at every qualifying tournament win cash. The 6th to 10th place win awesome prize packages, in this event sponsored by returning partner Element Custom Baits. All anglers in the field received Wing Ding and Mug Shot lures as well. Huge thank you to owner Mike Harris for his continued support of the Icebreaker Elite Series. The HuntFishMB Big Fish Award of $250 went to the 32.25″ monster caught by Unrau. It will be very tough to beat for Big Fish of the Year, but certainly not out of reach as the tour moves to vaunted Lake Winnipeg for the next three events.
Final standings, Prize Payout, and Top 10 Fish can be viewed here.