Massena sport fishing promoter wants collaboration with Akwesasne for summer tournaments

By Andy Gardner

MASSENA. The town’s director of sport fishing promotion says he wants Akwesasne to be involved with four tournaments planned for this summer that could bring 1,000 anglers to Massena.

Don Meissner told the Town Council that the tournaments are scheduled for this summer at the Massena Intake.

Meissner said the tournament coordinators should “figure out who’s the proper people we need to speak to, and who from among us should lead that contingency ... [to] collaborate and cooperate with the Natives,” he said.

Meissner said since the anglers are “already planning, right now” for the upcoming events, he wants to “develop a program to inform our business ... it’s going to have an impact on them and be prepared.”

“Each one of these tournaments is going to bring a different group and type of fishermen to Massena,” Meissner told the board. “We will be hosting 1,000 different fishermen ... the same group will never come back a second time to one of these tournaments.”

“The Major League Fishing tournament in June is going to bring the top fishermen in the world. They’re going to spend up to 10 days here in Massena. Then, in July, we will have the top tier of the best fishermen in FLW coming to our tournament,” Meissner said.

He said an August tournament would bring pro anglers who are “somewhat of a drop down in their level of success and expertise.” And a fourth in September, said, will bring “the masses of people that are on this stage of climbing, they hope, to the top.”