KENORA – Last year was a case of so near but so far for the fishing tandem of Ian Waterer and Motei Demers.
They were in the mix to win several tournaments together in 2023, but ended up earning multiple runner-up honours.
“When you are talking to people about how you do at the tournaments and you tell them that you finished second, they’ll say ‘That’s unbelievable,’” said the 22-year-old Demers, who was born and raised in Kenora.
“Then when you look at the pay drop between first and second place at some of these tournaments, it could be as much as $15,000.
“So we sort of had a mindset to come into this year with a bit of vengeance to try and win some tournaments to kind of make our money back, as there’s a lot that goes into this.”
That approach has worked out well for the duo, as they won the Kenora Walleye Open on July 7 and the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship on July 20.
“Things have been pretty fortuitous for us here lately,” said Waterer, who is originally from Winnipeg and learned to fish while at his family’s camp on Lake of the Woods.
“We did really well on our home lake and then we rolled on down to Fort Frances.
“We’ve had success in that tournament in the past but we didn’t really have any crazy high hopes or anything like that. We just wanted to go down there and have another good week on Rainy Lake.
“Instead, we were somehow in the driver’s seat for all three days.”
This marks the second time in the last three years that the tandem has won in Fort Frances.
In 2022, they edged out former Bassmaster Classic champion Jeff Gustafson and his partner John Peterson to take home the trophy with a three-day total weight of 57.63 pounds.
Waterer and Demers did even better in 2023 by hauling in 59.72 pounds of bass, but ended up in second after Bryan Gustafson and Mike Luhman reeled in 61.19 pounds.
“In 2022, it kind of almost felt like we had the lake to ourselves,” Demers said. “Nobody was really doing any of the techniques or patterns that we were doing.
“The year after that, it kind of started to get a little bit more crowded out there and we just didn’t really know how to control the fish and manage things.
“So this year, we took my boat and Ian’s boat down there and we both looked for a ton of fish leading up to the tournament. We knew that people were going to find them, but if we could find more than everyone else and find the bigger ones . . . we felt like that we could have a shot.”
Waterer and Demers opened this year’s tournament with a five-fish haul of 20.64 pounds, which was the biggest single-day catch of the event.
Their three-day total weight of 59.54 pounds gave them the win by two pounds over James Hill and Chris Viel.
“To be able to win a tournament twice is amazing, especially as we’ve had a bit of a hex where we’ve won a tournament but haven’t been able to repeat it,” Demers said.
“To see our names next to some of the other great fishers on that trophy is really cool.”
At the Kenora Walleye Open, Waterer and Demers’ two-day total weight of 31.47 pounds was enough for about a pound-and-a-half victory over Blair Dingwall and Jeremy Kennedy.
“It wasn’t easy by any means, but it felt like we couldn’t do anything wrong over those two days,” said Waterer, who is 29 years of age.
“If you could write down how everything was going to go ahead of time in order to win the tournament, that’s how it went.”
In addition to being long-time friends, Waterer and Demers also work together as fishing and hunting guides for Spines and Tines Guiding, which has allowed them to continue to build their chemistry over the years.
“We’re both totally bought into this,” Waterer said. “We spend all winter talking about and thinking about what we’re going to do for the next year.”
The big event on the calendar for the duo is the Kenora Bass International, which runs from Aug. 8-10.
They won the tournament in 2021, finished second in 2022 and came home in fourth place last year.
“I think we were both out on Lake of the Woods getting ready the day after we got back from Fort Frances,” Waterer said.
“It’s the crown jewel of the tournaments around here and I promise you that those three letters (KBI) go through our heads more than any other.”
