Godin and Galusha win their second Emo walleye title

By Dan Falloon
Staff writer

The hot seat at this weekend’s Emo Walleye Classic must have only been set to “simmer” for anglers Bill Godin and Ralph Galusha.
The duo weighed their Day 2 catch without much fanfare. Bringing up their fish before the top 11 teams entered the Emo-La Vallee Arena like rock stars, tossing candy to the kids as tractors towed in their boats.
Godin and Galusha sat on stage for all those proceedings, and were still seated when Day 1 leaders leaders Monte Mann and Ron Parks came up empty-handed to allow Godin and Galusha’s 11.32-pound two-day haul to stand as victorious.
“It was hot!” cracked Galusha. “It was lots of pressure waiting for everyone to come through.
“There were lots of really good fishermen there. We didn’t expect it to go down like this,” he acknowledged.
“We figured somebody was going to come in with six, seven pounds and we figured it would be close,” chipped in Godin.
Godin and Galusha, both of Devlin, sat in 13th spot after Friday, hauling 4.44 pounds, but they came up big with Saturday’s second-biggest catch, bringing in 6.88 pounds.
“It was just one here and one there,” Godin recalled of Saturday’s fishing. “I’ve got a saying, especially on the last day of a tournament when you’re doing not too bad, it’s one fish at a time. One fish at a time.
“One big fish and you’re right back in it, and that’s how it worked out.”
No other contending anglers were able to bring in any game-changers, and three teams in the top 10 on Friday were blanked entirely on Saturday.
“It was very tough fishing,” stressed Godin. Even the pre-fishing was tough.
“We kind of had a gameplan to go hang out at the spot out there [east] and just catch four keepers a day.”
Godin noted that trying to catch four good-sized fish on Saturday, though, was a tough task, but things just came through slow and steady as the day progressed.
“Yesterday [Friday], the nets were out quite a bit, but today, it was fairly quiet,” recalled Godin. “We only had one small fish in the livewell at 11:00. It was looking pretty grim.
The win was the second for Godin and Galusha, who also won the event in 2007, albeit with a two-day haul of 19.47 pounds that year.
“It’s always great, it’s always awesome,” enthused Godin of his and Galusha’s second title. “I never would have believed that we could come back and win it being in 13th place yesterday.”
The winning total of 11.32 pounds was easily the lowest two-day catch to win the tournament, smashing the record of 15.00 pounds set by Harvey Cochrane and Oliver Gibbons in the inaugural event in 2002.
“We caught a lot more fish last time,” recalled Godin. “I think what happened here is the water warmed up so fast with the early spring and a lot of the bigger fish left the river and it made it tough for everybody.
“There wasn’t as many fish in the river as there normally is.”