Editor's note: Jeffery Sauger, a photojournalism instructor at Central Michigan University contributed to this report.
This story was produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you're able, WCMU encourages you to listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the LISTEN button above.
“There's one...got him, boys. Fish on,” said longtime fisherman Roger Graham, catching a fish mid-conversation.
Fellow fishers rushed to grab a net, calling the size of the catch "perfect."
Graham was one of many fishers braving the cold overcast morning on March 28 during the Omer Suckerfest, located in Michigan's smallest city.
Fishers are competing in the Rifle River Suckerfishing Tournament. The biggest catch gets a $1,200 prize, second place gets $750 and third gets $500.
The event's organizer, Deric Rogers is in a small shack in the forest, a stone’s throw away from the river. He’s wearing fishing boots, brown pants and a hoodie that says “Omer Suckerfest,” with a silhouette of the distinctive pucker-lipped fish.
“(The suckerfish are) white meat. Back in the day, they used to sell it, they'd call it the Rifle River 'whitefish,'” he said, laughing. “And if you look, the Queen of England has had suckers from the Rifle River. I don't know where the proof is, but that's the rumor.”
Rogers said fishing here in Omer, a town with just over 270 people in Arenac County, is a tradition dating back to the 1930s.
The area had a tournament for years that was big in the 70s and 80s, but it ended after the city was unsuccessfully sued after an injury.
“It felt like swimming in the ashes of an old festival and it kind of made me sad… it was slowly dying out and the attendance, even the fish,” he said.
In the 90s, Rogers’ grandad tried to revive the tournament, but the city turned him down. More recently, Rogers saw an opportunity to bring it back, and the city approved him, so long as he ran it.
“They don't want much to do with it, so I talked with a couple people and they we came up with the idea to do the tournament,” he said. "Thanks to sponsorships from local businesses, the tournament was able to get off the ground."
But the tournament was canceled in its first year due to the pandemic, but now the event is beginning to attract attention. Rogers and his volunteers hope to make the tournament bigger — they have a whole festival planned with live music and a flea market and events for kids.
He said the fishing tournament is a way to support the community, which has been shrinking.
“I’m big on the cash prizes because this area, we’re a working-class area here and times are hard for people,” he said. “We've had you know, ‘can we give you a kayak,’ Well, I believe that it's important to give these families the cash money because it’s a lot of money these days, just in gas. So, this one cash payment or prize could help a family stay on top of their bills and stuff.”
Inside the shack, anglers begin to trickle in to buy tickets. They include last year’s tournament winner, local 14-year-old Remington Young.
“Last year, he fished every day, he pushed a shopping cart around with all his fishing stuff in it and he worked hard for it. I was so proud that he won,” Rogers said.
Jennifer Sherwood, of Sheridan, has been coming to Omer to fish for six years. She’s here fresh off knee surgery.
“This is actually my second tournament. I was at Crystal Lake Fishing Tournament in February and so now we're here and trying to make some things happen,” she said.
Back outside, the fishing is just getting started. It’s only the first day so a handful of fishermen are throwing out lines into the Rifle River.
"We got up here yesterday, and we've been out here since about 5-5:30," Graham said, a fisher from Birch Run. "We got up here last night, set up camp, fished until about 1 this morning with nothing, and we got out here early this morning and started getting on them."
He said the Rifle River is one of his favorite fishing spots.
“I love coming up to the Rifle during this week here, suckerfishing and we catch a lot of walleye, few steelhead here and there,” Graham said. “Every year, we try to get about 100 or so (suckerfish), we make snack sticks out of them, make like a cracker dip, cream cheese dip with them. They're pretty good."
Dan Wolfe, from Harrison, said people aren’t coming out like they used to, but the river is still a great place to fish.
"It's changed so much over the years. It's crazy. Now that I'm retired and disabled, gives me something to do,” he said.
He caught a suckerfish that he was proud to share, saying it was his biggest catch at the river.
"Well, that must be, that's got to be 4 pounds, probably 22 inches long," Wolfe said.
The tournament is such a big deal in the area, said event organizer Rogers, because it’s for the working-class community.
“We love the working class, and the oddballs, the Misfits and the rebels, you know and everyone. That's why we're blue and red. We don't care politically,” Rogers said.
Picking up a competition flyer, that calls the event, "Uncle Sam fishing,” Rogers said, "we just want to fish, we don't care about all the political drama. We're very proud Americans here.”
Rogers said the tournament aims to keep the local fishing tradition alive.
“Almost everyone was brought by their grandfather, father, their great uncle, their dad, so it's turned into a big family tradition for a lot of people,” he said. “We just hope to continue that, and we don't want to see it die out."
