The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation Henry Kelsey Awards for 2017 were presented at the 2018 Banquet on Saturday in Weyburn. The Cugnet Centre hosted the event which saw over 200 people attend from around the province.

"Every year we get together and we have 124 branches in the province and most of them have competitions throughout the year" explained Darrell Crabbe, Executive Director, Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation.

The Henry Kelsey Awards go to the hunter who has hunted the biggest animal of the year or Angler, the biggest fish caught. There are awards for different species and across different age groups of hunters and anglers.

"We have a scoring system, we call it the Henry Kelsey Big Game Scoring system that determines antler size primarily and is designed to run in the same form as the Boone and Crockett system."

Weyburn's Brendan LaBatte, Saskatchewan Roughrider, an avid angler and hunter, was in attendance as a co-host and presenter of the event.

The largest fish caught in 2017 was a 50-pound Lake Trout. It was caught by Raegan Exner from the River Ridge Fish and Game League at Wollaston Lake.

In hunting, the Ernie Paynter Memorial Award for Best Overall Head went to Randy Olson from Saskatoon for a Typical Elk.

Crabbe noted how Weyburn was a very gracious host.

"We always have a really good time when we have the chance to go to Weyburn."

Crabbe talked about the quality of wildlife in the province and noted Saskatchewan holds the world record for whitetail deer.

"We see every year we've got some great moose and elk scores that are coming in and certainly when we talk about fish we have some outstanding freshwater fish."

"Just over the last 15-20 year,s we have seen a steep increase in Catch and Release," added Crabbe and said more and more people are catching a fish, taking a photo and getting it back in the water.