National Walleye Tour bring dollars to Garrison
BY TYSON SMEDSTAD
For the past two weeks, you couldn’t turn around without seeing a fancy fishing boat wrapped with sponsor’s decals.
That’s because anglers ascended on Garrison the beginning of September to start their pre-fishing for the National Walleye Tour Tournament on Lake Sakakawea. “If you didn’t think this tournament brought money to our economy, you should’ve looked around,” CVB Director McKaila Behles said. “The motels were completely full, the grocery store and the gas station that had lines, you look at the restaurants and they were full. It expands out to many different businesses in our community. This all pays into Sale and Use.”
Garrison’s largest annual fishing tournament, the Governor’s Cup, usually brought in tons of revenue to the community had been canceled this spring. So to have this NWT tournament on the schedule was a blessing.
“There’s a huge benefit on a year that the pandemic really changed how our summer was, we defiantly needed a boost like this,” Behles said.
Many of the fishermen came to town a week or two before the start of the tournament pre-fishing.
“They were spending money the entire time they were here,” Behles said. “What a great economic boost for a community our size.”
Also, the exposure a tournament of this caliber gives a community like Garrison is incredible. Not only is there exposure from the Cabela’s National Walleye Tour Facebook page that posted updates throughout the tournament, there was also the Pros pre-fishing and posting about the perks of Lake Sakakawea, Fort Stevenson, the city of Garrison and North Dakota as a whole.
