Storyville Stories: Woody's River Shiver
"They said, ‘Find somebody motivated to do it.’ That meant it was me."
“River Shiver was spawned off of the Saginaw walleye contest that went on for about 28 years. When I got back into the bait business, I was curious to find out about Shiver on the River because I wanted to take part.
When I asked around, people said, ‘Well, that contest was discontinued.’
That shocked me because it was the number one fishing contest in the State of Michigan. More people entered it than any other contest in the state and we boasted over 3,000 entries when the Saginaw News was involved and the City of Saginaw was a sponsor. I don't know if it went higher than that, but I do know that it was a sad thing that it wasn't still going.
So, we got a hold of a few potential sponsors and groups and said, ‘Hey, what can we do to get this going?’
They said, ‘Find somebody motivated to do it.’
Okay. That meant it was me. So, all I did was just start getting ideas from fishermen and asking the guys that were fishing if they wanted to be in a contest. Everyone said yes, so we just went around to local establishments, Mom and Pop businesses, asking them for donations.
We did it four years prior to this year and this is our fifth annual. Last year, we were just blown away that we had over $7,000 in cash and prizes to give away, which is crazy. That was just from 28 different local businesses. I was in shock because I got to hand it all out.
There is such an interest for ice fishing here in Saginaw because when you are ice fishing on the Saginaw River, on any given day there can be walleye swimming underneath. Depending on your techniques, you can attract them over and then you start hooking them. Besides how good they taste, it's just an exciting time to be able to pull them through.
Besides walleye, we're liable to pull a sturgeon, a steelhead or a 30-pound catfish. I weighed in a 36-pound carp here years ago. Actually, Huron Fish had to weigh it for me, because my scale only went to 35 pounds. There's any number of species that swim through here. You don't know what you're going to catch, but mainly they're all going after walleye.
The guys that come to fish it, they come from all over the state. I fielded calls just yesterday from Indiana. There are guys that come here from Ohio. There are people here from Port Huron, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, all over.
These two young men came in here, probably 19 or 20 years old, from Charlevoix. I asked them if they got walleye from where they’re from. They said, ‘Yeah, maybe one or two if you’re lucky.’
When they were here, they caught 40 walleye and got eight keepers.
Another time a guy said they had an eight-man crew and they caught over 100 walleye, so everyone could get their limit of eight fish each. There's not a lot of places where you can do that.
When I answer the phone here at Live Bait, the area codes are 313, 810, 248 and 517, numbers like that. Even 219, that's Indiana. They're all over.
I really just want to put Saginaw on the map. Why wouldn't we? I did the history on Master Angler fish. For people that don't know, in the walleye world that's 11 pounds, or heavier. I think they even changed it now and I believe it’s 30 inches. So, anybody that catches one, you take a picture of it next to a tape measure, and or back then, you take it to a certified scale and weigh it. Then you send in the information. They have it right in the DNR rulebook; you send it to Lansing and they'll send you a patch for your fishing vest.
So, I took my little pencil and paper and I counted up in the Saginaw River, how many Master Anglers walleye we had. I think this was in like 1998 or something. Then I counted how many were in the Tittabawassee, how many in the Shiawassee, and I added all that up. Then I counted all the bodies of water in the State of Michigan and there was nobody that had more Master Anglers than the Saginaw River System. Then I counted up just the Saginaw River and that was even high as far as how many we had compared to all the other bodies of water. It was some big numbers.
In my opinion, Saginaw should change its name to the 'Walleye Capital of Michigan'! That's public information and anybody can check it."
This year's River Shiver fishing contest kicks off at 10AM on February 19th and runs through the 27th. Register at Live Bait, Red Wing Shoes, Bare's Sport Shop, Chuckie's Bait and Tackle, or online at:
https://saginaw-live-bait.square.site/
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.