The 2015 Northwest Division Championship presented by Berkley is over, but it was a “rare” occurrence and will be talked about for a long time to come. Washington big stick Aaron Eckterncamp catching a “Rare” unheard of bag of fish from the tournament waters, locking up the individual division champions title and Montana winning its first Division Championship in more than a decade for sure and possibly its first in history (no one is quite sure).
In a rare occurrence, all 54 anglers weighed in at least one fish every day of the three day event. There was not one single zero in three days. That is pretty impressive on any body of water. The Noxon Reservoir in upper northwest Montana made a name for itself this weekend with some impressive limits of fish. The average size limits are normally around 12 to 14 pounds. A good sack of fish would be anything above 16 pounds and anything above that would be rare.
Day one saw 47 of the 54 anglers bring in a limit of bass. The big bag on day one belonged to Brian Sanders of Sutherlin, OR with a 16.02 pound sack of bass. The biggest bass of the day belonged to Randy Gust of Osburn, ID with a 5.07 smallmouth. On the second day of competition, 48 out of 54 anglers brought a limit of fish to the scales. Aaron Echternkamp of Moses Lake, WA shocked the crowd with a bag that weighed one ounce shy of 21 pounds, at 20.15. Daily big bass honors on Day 2 went to Dillon Thomas, of Green River, WY with a 6.07 pound bucketmouth. And to finish the event, Day three saw three different anglers bring in bags of 17 plus pounds, while 45 of the 54 anglers recorded limits on Friday. The biggest bag belonged to Bryson Mort, from Post Falls, ID with 
17.05 pounds. The final big bass of the tournament went to Casey Clark from Lambert, MT with a nice 5.10 largemouth.
In the individual category, the overall winner of the event was Aaron Echternkamp with an impressive three day weight of 50.11 pounds. He was the only angler to reach the 50 pound club. For his efforts he received the overall Champions plaque and earned a spot at the TBF Federation National Championship next spring, representing Washington.
The other qualifier from Washington was Peter Kline. The other 8 qualifiers were as follows: IDAHO: Bryson Mort & Loron Torok, MONTANA: Stan Fisher & Danny Stamper, OREGON: Nicholas Fitzsimmons & Thomas Hartshorn, WYOMING: Zach Lugibihl & Lee Thomas. Congratulations to these ten qualifiers for the TBF National Championship.
In the competition among the states the final results looked like this:
Montana 437.14
Idaho 417.05
Washington 416.03
Oregon 360.10
Wyoming 179.03
Congratulations to Montana for a well deserved win in a total team effort.
What a great week in Montana. Just wanted to say a quick thanks to all who were involved in making this event a success. Thompson Falls Chamber of Commerce, Lakeside Resort & Motel & The Trout Creek Community Improvement Association all played a part in getting this event scheduled in Montana. Hosts for this event were Lakeside Resort & Motel, John & Julie Harris and then Trout Creek Motel with Bill & Yvonne Stevenson. Both of these places are fine places to stay with clean rooms and great people to take care of you while you are there. If you ever get a chance to get to upper Northwest Montana, I highly recommend you look these folks up. Thanks for a wonderful week in Montana.
For Day 3 Photo Gallery CLICK HERE
For Complete Standings CLICK HERE
