Prestigious bass-fishing tournament to be held in Belleville

By Jaykob Storey

BELLEVILLE — City council has agreed that during Canada Day weekend this coming year, Belleville will host the Berkley B1 fishing derby.

It’s a prominent bass-fishing tournament that regularly draws in over 300 competitors and has a prize of $100,000. The city is backing the tournament with $32,000 in sponsorship fees. The event has been held in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., for the last nine years and is branching out into Ontario.

Ben Woo, a professional angler and president of the Berkley B1 organization, says that in 2017  there will an event in Port Colborne, Ont., as well as the one in Belleville.

“Anglers have been coming to (the Quebec) event for the last eight, nine years and they expressed to us that we need an event like this in Ontario,” said Woo.

According to Dug Stevenson, the executive director of Bay of Quinte Tourism, the tournament could be a boon for the city.

“The average person coming here spends over $150 a night,” Stevenson told QNet News. “So when you have these types of multi-day events, obviously that’s great from an economic activity perspective.”

But aside from the tourism revenue, Stevenson said, a big-time tournament like Berkley will be good for Belleville in the long term.

“We have amazing fishing in the Bay of Quinte and I think we have an opportunity to really promote this region as a leader in fishing. Anytime we can attract a larger tournament like this one, it helps solidify that – not only on provincial scale, but on a national and even international scale … The more steps we can take to promote ourselves as a fishing destination and as a tournament destination, the better. The other thing about tournaments, which is different than just regular leisure tourism, is they’re often accompanied by media, and that has spinoffs that just continue to create opportunities for marketing.”

These sentiments were reflected by Woo.

“We’re not talking about a local fishing derby here,” Woo said. “We’re talking about serious anglers who commit the time, and when I say time I mean anywhere from five to 10 days before the event … We have teams coming in from Alberta, Manitoba, Eastern provinces like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They’re coming from very far and a lot of them even bring their families, make it into a family vacation. We’re talking Canada Day weekend here.”

Asked why Belleville was chosen for the tournament, Woo said, “The anglers themselves identified the Bay of Quinte as a premiere destination that they were excited to fish in. And it was up to us to figure out where would be the best location to host an event such as ours. Belleville was right at the top of the list.”

The Berkley B1 in Belleville is just the start of something much bigger, he said. “What Belleville is going to represent is that not only do we have three B1 events going into 2017, but we are creating something that is unprecedented and that is a true national championship.”