Author: tonyacharneski

Written by Tyler Knauf

A Bay of Green Bay Legend in the Making – Aug. 15, 2026

Seven AM sharp. Nine boats rumbled to life at the launch on the Bay of Green Bay. The sun was climbing fast, and the water was a bit choppy to start. Seven hours. That’s the window. The kind of day where the walleye either bite like they owe you money or ignore you for seven hours like an ex-partner. Today was going to be interesting.
Tweet Garot Mechanical had thrown down the gauntlet. A full tournament. Bragging rights. And most importantly: a massive pile of fish to brag about for the rest of the year.

The Contenders Leave the Dock

Joey Hartjes pulled away from the dock with his co-angler, already pointing toward the deep water with the confidence of someone who’d done this a thousand times. “Six fish,” he said to himself. “Six big ones.”

Two boats back, Justin Beck and Cody Dziekan compared notes with their co-angler, their tackle boxes already organized with the precision you’d expect from BAS guys—everything labeled, everything backed up, everything tested. A year of learning a thing or two from Tyler Knauf and the BAS department had sharpened their edge.

Steve Dickey and Doug Wagner settled into their rhythm with the steady focus of a maintenance crew running through a checklist. Calm. Methodical. No drama.

The rest of the fleet spread out: Zach Leiser, Wyatt Malsin, Tyler Knauf, Arnold Simonar, Leann Claus, and Mike Podnar—each boat a potential upset, each skipper convinced their fish were biting today.

The Bay of Green Bay stretched out before them, 1,400 square miles of walleye territory. Nine boats. One champion. Let’s go.

Weigh-In: The Final Tally

Special Awards:
Biggest Walleye of the Day: Joey Hartjes, 29.25″
Smallest Walleye of the Day: Zach Leiser, 11.5″

The Winner Takes it All

Joey Hartjes stood on that dock with a grin that said it all: 164.5 inches. Champion.
That six-fish stringer was the measure of his skill, his knowledge of that bay, his ability to find walleye when they didn’t want to be found. It was a 12-inch margin over second place. In tournament fishing, that’s dominance.

But here’s the thing about a 9-boat tournament on the Bay of Green Bay: everybody did something right. Everybody caught fish. Everybody earned their place in the standings.

Back at Tweet Garot

Monday morning rolled around. The trophy hardware gleamed on Joey Hartjes’s desk—silver and blue catching the light, the weight of it settling in nice and hard. Champion. 2026. Bay of Green Bay. Steve Dickey walked by, saw it, and nodded. Last year’s champion passing the torch to this year’s. That’s how it works out on the water. You bring your A-game, you execute, and if you’re better that day—164.5 inches worth of better—the hardware comes home with you.

But here’s what everyone at Tweet Garot already knew by Tuesday:
Next year, the competition will be back on the Bay.
Word travels fast in a mechanical contracting shop. BAS guys, HVAC technicians, sheet metal fabricators, plumbers—the Tour de Green Bay has a way of making people who’ve never held a fishing rod suddenly interested in learning. Because that’s what the Bay of Green Bay does. It calls to you. Those walleye are out there, waiting, hiding in the structure and the deep water, and somewhere across the company, someone’s thinking: “Next year, that hardware is mine.” The challengers are lining up. The office is already buzzing with talk. New faces will show up at the dock. Proven competitors will refine their strategies. And Joey will wake up next August 15th knowing that everyone else is coming for him.

That’s the beautiful part of a tournament like this. It’s not just about 164.5 inches on a measuring board. It’s about the incredible walleye that the Bay of Green Bay has to offer. It’s about the strategy, the skill, the luck, and the grind. It’s about nine boats on the water, seven hours of focus, and the kind of friendly competition and great comradery at the award ceremony that makes a team better.

Next year, the Bay will be waiting.

And Tweet Garot will be ready.

This weekends fishing tournament on Lake Wissota was great. We saw a fair number of fish caught.

1st place with 109.35” for 6 walleye Greg “Dauber” Backhaus and Tate Brown
2nd Place with 100.75” was Zach Leiser and Aaron Bravick
3rd place with 83.5” was Justin Beck, Cody Dziekan and CJ Thurner

Largest walleye Dauber and Tate 21.5”
Smallest walleye was Dan Cater at 11.5”.

Great time. Pizza was good.

The first ever Marquette TG Walleye Tournament is in the books and it did not disappoint. On May 30th, 7 boats and 17 anglers hit the water for a day that delivered stunning scenery, fierce competition, and what we are pretty confident amounted to hundreds of Walleyes caught. Not a bad way to kick off a tournament tradition.

With a six fish stringer format, every inch mattered and the standings proved it. The top three teams finished within just 1.25 inches of each other, keeping the competition alive from the first cast to the last weigh in. A special shout-out goes to the two boats and four anglers who made the trip all the way up from Wisconsin. That kind of commitment to compete means the world to us, and we hope it was worth every mile.

After a full day on the water, the crews gathered at Jasper Ridge Brewing Company in Ishpeming for pizza, apps, and well earned awards. Congratulations to Team Carter Peterson for taking home both the biggest stringer and the largest Walleye at 22 inches. And hats off to Jim Vitort on Team Justin Beck for landing an absolute gator of a Northern Pike at 37.25 inches. That fish had people talking all night.

🏆 Six Fish Stringer Results

Place	Team	Total Inches
🥇 1st Place	Team Carter Peterson	119.50″
🥈 2nd Place	Team Justin Beck	118.75″
🥉 3rd Place	Team Braden Reinhart	118.25″

Sponsor Thank You

A huge thank you to Standard/Wittock Supply for donating a Milwaukee Impact Set as our door prize. Your generosity made the day even more special. We could not do events like this without partners who show up for the community.