It’s just two weeks away! The big Northern Pikeminnow Derby held by the Quincy Valley Tourism Association kicks off with the orientation meeting on Friday, September 23rd, starting at 6 p.m. at Crescent Bar. The derby serves two purposes. One is to provided families a fun weekend of fishing, with the potential of winning some of $10,000 cash and prizes set aside for the derby. There are also tagged fish prizes worth an additional $30,000 if caught. The other reason is to help reduce the population of pikeminnows in the Columbia River. These fish are voracious predators of young salmon and steelhead and every one of them is caught improves the odds of our salmon and steelhead reaching the ocean. The entry fee is $20.00 for adults and kids under the age of 16 can fish for free. Anglers are encouraged to visit the QVTA web site for registration forms, derby rules and other information. You can find the site at
www.quincyvalleytourism.org. These are same folks that ran the highly successful tagged trout derby at Burke and Quincy lakes this spring, and I expect them to provide another quality experience for anglers.