Breaking the Ice

Anglers from across America and Canada braved sub-zero winter conditions to participate in the 41st annual Saratoga Lake Ice Fishing Derby last weekend.

There were 593 registered anglers competing and a total of 255 fish were measured in the Derby Headquarters Tent, according to Chief Executive Director of the Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce Amanda Knotwell.

"It was a fantastic weekend," Knotwell said, "knowing when you have good volunteers that show up to make the event go as seemingly easy as possible."

Overall winner that "turned out to be a monster"

Overall Derby winner is determined by combining the length and girth of the fish for a total total score, with weight used as a tiebreaker.

Raymond Hunt, 24, caught the weekend's winner – a 3.25 pound rainbow trout with a 32.5 total score.

Hunt has been ice fishing his entire life and caught the winner late Saturday morning using "just a good old jig in a lake," he said.

"It was just a normal day of fishing," Hunt said, "then the Jawjacker went off, I grabbed it and it turned out to be a monster."

When the head of the fish flashed and took up almost the whole icehole, Hunt knew he had a contender.

"Once I landed the fish," he said, "I got that feeling that I'm at least contending. You don't know if you're going to win it. It's tough."

The best part of ice fishing is the excitement and goodtimes, Hunt said.

"Getting together with good friends and just catching fish," he said. "Doesn't matter if you're catching monsters or small frys, it's always a good time."

"My favorite part is seeing those same faces over and over."

From measuring, recording, writing checks and driving anglers across the Lake's frozen surface to the Headquarters Tent –Knotwell and her team of volunteers have fine tuned running the Derby since she was hired as Director in 2021.

Her favorite part of the Derby is seeing all the returning anglers, Knotwell said.

"I have some that have attended all 41 Derby's," she said. "We have some that have been coming up for five plus years. So, my favorite part is seeing those same faces over and over. They might not even bring a fish, but they come into the tent and say, 'Hey Amanda, we just wanted to stop by and see you.'"

She also enjoys seeing the face of a child bringing their catch into the tent for the small-fry competition.

"Seeing those little small fries, like the really small fries, bring in their fish and they're just so proud," Knotwell said.

Weather and 2022 yellow perch kill-off may be culprit for drop in registrants and fish sizes

In 2025, there were 44 fewer participants than the 2024 Derby. The forecast for negative temperatures could have affected some of the registrants, Knotwell said.

In 2022, the derby had 810 registered anglers packed into Saratoga Lake. The entire ice on the lake was 10+ inches, no wind and that Saturday and Sunday were beautiful, Knotwell said about the 2022 Derby.

According to the National Weather Service, the temperatures this weekend barely hit a double digit high and never got out of the negatives when factoring in windchill. Luckily, the fish didn't mind and were still biting.

Road advisories, closures and arctic conditions almost certainly played into the lower participation numbers.

To eliminate the invasive yellow perch, Wyoming Fish and Game completed a successful rotenone project which killed all the fish in Saratoga Lake in September of 2022.

Although the Lake's rebound is on track, there's still a size discrepancy to past winners. The top three overall winners of the 2020 Derby had total scores of 38, 37.25 and 32.5.

"We had big ones in there," Knotwell said about Saratoga Lake. "Some of the anglers that had been coming wanted the Lake to bounce back before they started coming back up."