After pulling in an unremarkable cutthroat trout Saturday at Upper Sunshine Reservoir, Jamie Fritz was just about to toss it back down her hole in the ice when she noticed a splash of color. That’s when things got loud.

“Everybody on the lake probably heard her screaming,” said teammate Sean Gilcrist during the 16th annual Meeteetse Ice Fishing Derby.

Hopefully nearby children had their earbuds in because Fritz got a little colorful with her choice of words, Gilcrist said. She had pulled in one of three specially tagged fish from the reservoir; the first ever pulled in during the tournament in the storied history of the event. This particular 10-inch cutthroat trout was worth $1,800 to the longtime angler.

“I was like, ‘oh, this is small. I’m gonna put it back.’ Then, just before I was going to drop it in, it kind of turned in my hand and I saw the pink tag and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” she said.

Fritz wasn’t a recipient of beginner’s luck. She’s been fishing hard for many years and is a frequent competitor in the derby. Each year her team pre-fishes the reservoirs in an effort to find the fish and they will stay on the lake wetting their lines through the worst weather with hopes of pulling in a lunker. In fact, she said she’s spending some of the prize money on more fishing equipment.

“I can’t believe it’s me,” she said while heading to the awards ceremony to get her fat check. “I kind of thought it was like a one-in-a-million chance. I didn’t think anybody would ever catch one.”

For five years the tagged fish feature has been an exciting part of the derby. Each year Wyoming Game and Fish biologists tag six fish, three for each reservoir in the competition. Sponsors for the tournament donate money for those who catch the fish to divide equally, but over the years nobody was fortunate enough to cash in on the little pink tags.

Volunteer Shannon Eldredge was at the check-in table chatting with other volunteers and had mentioned she hoped to see a tagged fish this year.

“We were talking about how nobody had ever caught one. I turned around and a  lady walks up and said ‘I’ve got three fish and something special in my bucket,’” Eldredge said. “I said, No suckers, right? And she goes, ‘Oh, no.’ Then she pulled out that tag fish and we were all just jumping with excitement.”

While the excitement of catching the 10-inch trout hadn’t worn off even after the final horn was sounded, the underwhelming specimen caught at around 11 a.m. Saturday was the last fish Fritz would catch during the tournament.

“I guess my luck ran out yesterday,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

While most contestants had decent luck day one on Upper Sunshine Reservoir, fish caught in Lower Sunshine Reservoir typically is where the tournament is won. For the previous two years anglers have pulled in beastly lake trout on day two.

Last year Fred Bronnenberg yanked a 32-inch laker through the ice, propelling his team to victory and thousands in prize money. In 2022, Sam Korhel caught a 34-inch trout that was the largest ever to come out of the reservoir during the derby and led his team to a 10-inch victory for the top prize.

Korhel was back again, but this time with a new team made of coworkers at Wyo-Ben in Thermopolis, including Justin Kiser and Gage Maser. They were in fourth place after the first day of fishing, but nearly 3 inches behind Bryan Anderson’s team.

Then, first thing in the morning on day two, Korhel pulled in a 24-inch trout. The team spirit was pretty high, thinking they were on the right spot. But then the fishing shut down, Korhel said.

“It was pretty tough. We were lucky to get what we caught afterwards. It was a team effort for sure everybody chipped in a nice fish,” Korhel said.

They spent the bulk of the day staring at blank screens on their electronic fish finders and figured they were probably out of the money as they checked in their three fish.

Everybody was having a tough day on the hard water, said Game and Fish Cody Region Game Warden Coordinator Scott Werbelow.

“I just made a circle out there a little while ago and there’s a lot of folks that aren’t catching anything. They haven’t even had a bite,” he reported while working the event.

It snowed pretty hard as the tournament opened, but then it got so warm many anglers were stripping off their winter coats.

“It was a good time to get out with family and friends and spend the day together trying to catch big fish,” he said.

Korhel’s team was one of the first teams to weigh-in after the 2 p.m. horn, catching just under 63 inches of fish. They nervously waited as other teams came, but few fish were landed over 20-inches and the Wyo-Ben team squeaked out a win of just over an inch and winning close to $3,000 in prize money. It was a fortune for everyone except Korhel’s previous teammate David Diede, who decided to go to Puerto Rico this year rather than fish.

Also getting in on the slow but winning action was Justin’s son, Karter Kiser. He caught 35.25 inches of trout in the two-day tournament to win the Small Fry division for the second year in a row, beating his 2023 total by one-half inch.

Tournament director Stephanie Faust, who is also coordinator for the Meeteetse Visitor Center, reported 108 teams entered the tournament this year, down from 119 teams last year. The derby is the largest source of revenue for the center each year for the town of 314 residents in the foothills of the Absaroka Mountain Range.

Faust was experiencing her first mountain ice fishing tournament after moving to Wyoming from North Carolina last year.

“I’m from the South. When I went to the upper and I turned the corner and saw all the tents on the ice, I was like, OK, this this is pretty cool. All the hard work was worth it,” she said, thankful for the relatively mild weather in her inaugural year as director.