Press Release

Congratulations to the Team of Mickey Petree and Steve Nelson for their first place Cabelas KING KAT victory at Lake Tawakoni TX on Feb 28 2009. Also, congratulations to the Team of Cody and Bill Mullennix on their second place victory at the event.

Mickey and Steve were using 8/0 and 5/0 DOUBLE ACTION hooks, sinker bumpers, #6 sinker slides, and fish grips. They caught their bluecats in 3 to 12 ft. of water on cut shad. They were anchored and had to reel down on a few fish but the rest were hooking themselves.

Mickey and Steve won $3700.00 with 189 lbs.

Cody and Bill Mullennix were using the 8/0 black nickel DOUBLE ACTION hooks, sinker bumperz, #6 sinker slides, and floating fish grips. They caught their bluecats in 4 to 14 ft of water anchored. The bait of choice was big cut gizzard shad. They had to reel down to catch most of their catfish.

Cody and Bill won $1600.00 with 148 lbs.

All of us here at Team Catfish are very proud that these anglers choose to use our gear when their money and reputations are on the line at catfish tournaments…… Thank you!

Congrats to all the winners down in TX. I wish I could of been there with you all.

x

Nice lake there…saw some very nice winter blue cats in your videos.

Chris and Jeff…not meaning to hijack this thread…but why hasn’t any of the tourny come up this way?

I think the closest location I’ve seen is the Rock River.

Any insight here?

Brian,

I am not sure……I am in favor of having events all over the US.

I don’t organize any tournaments so I can’t answer the question, but I know there are lots of good catfish anglers in your part of the country!

I think the upper Mississippi would be a natural. As far as the tourney on Rock river, it will get crowded. I have some mixed thoughts on that whole deal.

Shawn

Shawn, mixed thoughts as in a tourney coming to fish in one area? Please expand. I’ve never been in or to a larger tourney.
I don’t have that “competitive drive”, but there are many that do I would think.

They have the Cats incredible up our way. Otherwise its about 8 hours to the next closest tourney.
Upper mississippi would be interesting. I’m trying to think of a place that could hold and stage a contest of any size…. Nothing is coming to mind right now…. But I’m not an expert on the Mississippi.

Everts had 74 boats in the Freeze Your Butt yesterday…is that too small?

The Rock is not a huge river, maybe comparable to the lower Minnesota, Wisconsin, Croix, or Des Moines (?)rivers. While the tournement covers a large area, there are only 12-15 launches. Plus there’s a lot of depth variation so unless everyone is running jets, a lot of boats will be jockeying for position in the easier to run stretches of river. I don’t know how many boats they’re expecting, but at tournement time, and a few week(s) prior to the tournement I would expect the more popular pools to have a lot of traffic. Seems like it would be a major hinderance to local anglers, where a large river like the Mississippi has room for a lot more guys to fish.

I also think it will prove difficult for tournement officials to enforce rules for such a spread out area. The tournement borders are close to 90 miles apart.

On the positive side, it’s exciting from a tourism perspective for the Dixon area. Hopefully, they will see a lot of related traffic. Maybe the additional exposure can be used to demonstrate the value of the trophy flathead fishery, that our DNR could take steps to protect for the future. More likely, they would react that “look there’s plenty of fish for everyone, no need to implement size limits etc. here…” That has been their line in the past.

Just my $0.02.

Shawn

Without trying to be viewed as the crotchety naysayer of the forum, is there any real reason why somebody would need to bring yet another contest to the region? I recognize the fact that contests create revenue for the fishing industry, which is a great form of promoting the sport, although the constant commercialization of everybody’s favorite hobby can also have adverse effects, and frankly it gets a little old. Living where I do, I have a bias against large contests. I do not necessarily feel that contests exploit fisheries; many places have such an abundance of fish (i.e Upper Miss walleyes) that effects are largely unnoticeable. It just seems there is complete shift in motives for fishing; focusing on peer recognition via sponsors, winnings, fame, and fortune, that many loose sight of why they are on the water in the first place – fishing. A large catfish tourney in this region would only add more marketing and money makers to the sleeper sport.

To each his own – don’t take this comment as a slant against on everybody’s posts or the contest, I just had to voice my opinion through the thread hijack. That’s all I had to say – sorry to be the pessimist in the crowd – carry on.

Yes Brian, I’m sure there are more that feel the same as you. I have to admit, I was thinking of the negatives after I posted my question.

The folks that want to keep the fish/sport to themselves will be against a tourney and the folks that are willing to share with others will be interested.

Neither type of person is good or bad. Just the way it is.

I appreciate your post.

The Kingkat Tournament that is coming up to the Rock River is a very well organized event. This is not a contest. This is a tournament were all fish are return back to the water. I have been to several of Tanners Tournaments and he puts on one heck of a show for the spectators as well as the fisherman. I would expect around 100 boats to enter this event with I dont think is to much for the span of river you can fish. This is great thing for the area commerence and for the sport of fishing in general.

The spectators are always amazed at the fish in there river and we hope to turn the kids that come to the event on to fishing.

One of the pulls of the area is the size of the river. A guy in a 14′ boat has just as much of a chance winning as someone running a 24′ big jon because of the water depth differences.

I see no problems with tournaments as long as they as run properly. CPR

I’ve been on a handful of different pools on the river, and there are long stretches of river that are 2-3 feet and very rocky. A lot of the key flathead spots in each pool are fairly well known, and in some pools there’s not that many. For 100 or more boats to share these spots…I don’t know.

There’s many miles of lower river with little access, and is everyone familiar with Illinois laws regarding transporting fish – all local water in any container (including livewells) must must be emptied when the boats leave the water. Will there be a weigh in station at every launch site?

And catching numbers of fish and keeping them alive during weigh in and release still causes a great deal of stress. No one knows how many released fish die later due to stress, disease, bacteria, etc.

I know I sound “anti-tournement”, and that’s not my intent. But, there are two sides to every coin. Which was all I’ve been saying all along…I know a few local anglers fishing, and wish them all the best.

Shawn

ps If the tournement guys get an exemption from the law about emptying all containers of local water upon leaving the launch, I will be way beyond pi$$ed off. I can’t even catch bullheads to use later as bait with our current rules…