Wagner, Lake Francis Case to host Masters Walleye Circuit stop in 2023
Aug. 16—WAGNER, S.D. — Lake Francis Case and Wagner, South Dakota, are expected to be a competition site for the Masters Walleye Circuit in 2023, the tour announced recently.
The MWC recently announced its schedule, which will include a two-day competition in Wagner on Aug. 25-26, 2023.
It will be the penultimate competition of the seven-event regular season in 2023, which is capped with the three-day World Walleye Championship on Oct. 5-7, 2023, at Pierre on the Lake Sharpe reservoir in the Missouri River. Teams are qualifying during the current 2022 season for that Pierre event.
"We try to gain input from the anglers each year to build out an exciting schedule that anglers would want to fish, and hold them in communities that welcome the anglers," Tournament Director Jeff Kelm said in a statement. "We also try to move the World Walleye Championship across the country from east to west and back again to better serve anglers and to test their skills to see who can earn the title of World Walleye Champions."
In its 39th year, the MWC is the longest running National Walleye Circuit of any kind and targets high-stakes, team-format qualifying events on seven of the nation's top walleye destinations. It is holding an event in Gettysburg, South Dakota and Lake Oahe this weekend, launching from Gettysburg for the first time. Competitors battle for thousands of dollars in prize money and sponsored items at each stop.
The MWC's rival tour, the National Walleye Tour, has recently scheduled stops in South Dakota, with visits to Chamberlain in 2021 and 2022 and in Mobridge in recent years, last competing on Lake Oahe in 2021.
