FAAM Member Championship

About

Every March, we hold the FAAM Member Championship. This is an ice fishing derby for the Top 25 point earners during the year who compete for the Angler of the Year title. Every derby so far has been held on Lake Winnipeg with walleye being the target species.

We also hold the B-Side Derby at the same time with great prizes up for grabs open to all members who did not make the Top 25 cut.

Youth Angler of the Year has been awarded several times to the winner of the Youth Division at the Championship, although we have also awarded it to a member who has shown exemplary participation and angling enthusiasm the entire year.

2025 Championship RECAP

There were 28 members who qualified to compete in the Championship, 24 of which were able to make it out on derby day. It was an unusually frigid day on Lake Winnipeg for the last weekend in March with many of the anglers setting up shelters within the marked out permitted zone.

The bite was very slow to start the day but it began to pick up by mid-morning with fish after fish getting submitted to the designated Weighmaster Eric Labaupa. Altogether between the Championship, B-Side, and Youth Division there were 70 walleye submitted for scoring. The bite was really on by the time the 3pm end time approached. So much so that a petition was started to extend the derby by one hour which was rejected by the Weighmaster.

As is tradition, no one but the Weighmaster knows the scores with the results not released until the Annual General Meeting a month later. Everyone was held in suspense until then as talk amongst the anglers showed that the score would be very close at the top.

Congratulations go out to our 2025 Angler of the Year Anthony Magcawas who won the Championship with a score of 16.21lbs for three fish! He narrowly beat out Val Dotoli who caught a full limit of five walleye with a score of 15.45lbs. Reigning 2024 Angler of the Year Jennifer Trotman wasn’t far behind in third place with a score of 15.11lbs for five fish.

Huge thank you to Eric Labaupa and Kickerfish for donating 9/10 prizes for the Top 10, 1st and 2nd place for the B-Side, and 5/10 prizes for the Youth Division! Thank you to Regan and Rachel Aranzanso for donating the 2nd place prize for the Championship, Jennifer Trotman for two of the prizes for the Youth side, and Jason Cross for helping with some of the B-Side 1st place.