CAT State Championship RESULTS

After the pre-fishing was over, the general question was, where have all the big fish gone? Thirty two teams ( 18 DIV I; 14 DIV II) hit the water Fri morning for day one of the two day event. The bite had been tentative during pre-fishing and that didn't change for Fri or Sat. Small baits seemed to work best with natural colors, shad or minnow imitations accounting for a lot of bites. With the frontal passage late morning Fri, the fish got tight lipped. Same was true Sat with NNE winds gusting to 15 making for some difficult fishing with light baits.

Minnows didn't help us at all. Max fished minnows for 3 hours without a bite while I was getting bit on jigs. Presentation had to be with a lot of finesse to entice a bite for us. I never felt a crappie thump a jig in four days. If I got a thump, it was a catfish and we caught plenty of those. They loved the minnows Max was using. We averaged 45+ fish each day, but 25+ were dinks.

Congratulations to Eric Walker and Matthew Carroll as State Champions in DIV II 15.16 lbs

Congratulations to Ahn Nguyen and Larry Kirkland as State Champions DIV I 18.21 lbs

Congratulations to all the teams that competed in some tough conditions.

Congrats to all who fished'!!

Nice job

Tuff!
Thanks CAT for another well run event.
Now getting back, the fishing conditions were as tuff both days as I can remember.
I will admit, even being my home lake fish weren't hard to find, but making them bite was the trick.
Eric and I had a game plan for both days and stuck with it.
Jigs tipped with minnows was our choice. Thanks Eric for putting up with Old Jigum this year.
Now it's time to do some fun fishing the freezer needs some filling up.

congrats to y'all

wtg ladies and gents!

Congrats to all the winners and the folks qualified to fish it.

It was a tough 2 days of fishing!
The best bite for me was on a 1/32 oz jig head, which was double slow in the high winds.
I picked up a rod with a 1/16 multiple times, but it wasn't getting bit as well as the 1/32.
The fish were biting as the lure was slowly raised up, heard a lot of guys say the same thing.
The fish knocked the drain/overfill plug out in my livewell on day 1 and we lost our 3 big fish, had to work to get a limit again.
At the end of day 1 we were in 5th place, 1/2 of a # down from 1st.
Day 2, by noon, we only had 3 dinks in the livewell. Had to head to new water out of the wind and search for bp's.
Slowly but surely, we put some nicer fish in the box.
At day 2 weigh in we were in the "Hot Seat" till the final team to weigh in, Eric and Matthew.
The knocked us out of 1st by having .20 #'s more

Congrats Guys!!!!!
Glad the year is over, but already looking forward to next year

Congratulations to all.

We to had some issues day one with bigger fish dying ect...the reason I mention this is because other teams had no problem sharing some tricks to keep them alive for day two. The members of this club are good ole boys and surely help me become a better tournament fisherman. Thanks guys!

Congrats to all

Thanks again to all the CAT officers and volunteers that put on another great tournament! These CAT tourneys are always very well organized and go smoothly. If you're a crappie fisherman and haven't joined CAT or fished a tourney, you're missing out. I was never a big tourney guy until I joined CAT, but now I love it. A few years ago I was just a novice(fill the freezer) crappie fisherman like most of you guys, but now I have a few plaques for the wall.

As for the tourney...
Pre-fishing weather was perfect and yielded some very productive spots. Pre-fishing actually produced a much bigger stringer than our two tourney days, but weather was a big factor. Many people, including us, couldn't fish their most reliable stuff because of the weather change. I focused my pre-fishing on areas that would be fishable in the NE wind that was expected, and that paid off. Matthew and I stuck to those areas both days. Patience paid off, although I was pretty nervous headed to the weigh-in on day 2.
I felt pretty fortunate to hang onto the day 1 lead with guys like Todd & Richard and Guy & David breathing down our necks, but it felt good to get the "W" when it was all said and done.

This is a short stray from the tourney,but this is the perfect reason for the G2G,i know mr carroll,but now i can put another name with a face,Eric.congrats!

Best plastics for us were the natural colored baits like the Slab Bandit in black shad and Thermocline in natural shad and pearl ice. I caught a lot of fish on a 1/24th gray hand tied jig from Skip48. The short profile seemed to draw bites when the bigger baits would not. Fish were biting on a very slow rise or slow fall or pitch over the structure and let the bait swing back. Holding the bait dead still would get some small bumps but hardly a bite. I think the fish were actually bumping the bait with their nose or nipping the tail. When the bait was falling, the line went slack and it was down in their mouth. By falling, I was lowering the bait much slower than it would fall naturally. Had to stay focused to detect a bite.

We also experienced problems with fish not faring well in the live well. Day 1, I added some catch and release and I think that was a problem. Day 2 we simply cooled the water with ice and kept the recirculate pump on interment. Fish did much better on day 2. I believe the catch and release I have is old and that caused the problem. I'm also going to clean the live well with a brush and thoroughly rinse it. Too much slime and gunk in there. Probably has bacteria growing in there.

I don't think the catch and release works for crappie Ken. It killed all but the last few of our fish at Fork and our fish looked terrible Friday morning early so I pumped it all out and just used straight water. We lost a good fish in the livewell friday and lost them all at 11am Sat due to either my knee hitting the switch bouncing from spot to spot or Langdon piled up in the drivers seat napping. Who knows. Was heartbreaking to look at a pile of dead dry fish in a livewell at 11am. We managed to come back with just over 7lbs but had 4 dead ones that we coulda used for sure. Glad we held on for 3rd place. Was really excited to get such a nice plaque and the check was totally unexpected!! Man CAT does a great job!! Thanks to all of ya'll for all the hard work and all the attention to little man!! He's the reason we showed up at Palestine and we just sorta calf roped Clay into it all and I think he's hooked now too! Langdon wore his new CAT jersey all weekend and wanted to wear it to bed but settled for letting mom wash it and going to bed with all his bags of plastic baits he got and his new dock shooting rod from Weston!! I think his mother and I both have had to tell him no shooting crappie jigs in the house at least a couple times already!
Looking forward to next year!!! Congrats to all. Was neat to see people catching fish so many different ways on the lake!

Even better the whole family was there for weigh in and watching the LSU game last night pops said that stunk we lost out because of dead fish and that needs to be fixed so boats headed to the shop tomorrow for new pumps and switches. New 3 bank charger. Normal maintenance and a LSS-2 box. Look out next year boys and girls!!

You boys and girls done good .Congrats for your hard work .Now time for fun fishin.Darrell

We also used catch release the first day. Lost 4 of best fish. I won't use it again!

Drained live well once at mid day to get slime and poop out then refilled with fresh water on day two. Kept water cool and fish were much better than day one.

Pre-fishing a month ago, I saw hundreds of little shad on various types of structure and thinking to myself ...there got to be a happy crappie down there. I didn't have much luck at the time but left with a feeling that fish are there.



A couple of weeks before the tournament ...came back and fished the same area with a slower/methodical presentation. Caught some nice fish ...not huge, but nice healthy fish that have been feeding well.





Our plans on tournament day was to get a quick 7-10 fish and then go hunt for the bigger fish. I think we got 15 nice fish by 8:30 and spent the rest of the day looking for better fish. Our 2 biggest fish ...a 1.71 & a 1.60 thumped the jig hard and took off sideway like a sandbass or catfish that we didn't even go for the net. Only when it surfaced is when we saw we had a crappie ...and mad dash for the net.

Day 2 was tough ...the places where we caught fish on day 1 was void of fish or had only small fish. We had 6 average fish in the live well at noon & was in full panic mode We ran to the 198 bridge where the old 4 star marina used to be and began hitting the pylons. Pitching the jig out in front of the pylon and letting the wind/waves pushing it back. A foot before it got back ...thump!

We ended up with 2-3 better fish and thought we had around 7.5 lbs for day 2. It's like a rollercoaster ride ...high on day 1, low on day 2 when we thought we blew it and another high when we saw the final weight

Anyway, winning a TSCC have been a goal of mine for a while ...I'm fortunate to have done it

Dude you guys crushed it and a well deserved win too, two of the best fishermen out there. Congrats Men!

I am ready to go get some more of those fish that hardly move! When ever your ready.

Just to add to some of the comments...

I always clean my livewell thoroughly after EVERY trip. We didn't loose a single fish the whole tourney, and didn't use any additives or ice. Just kept the timer on the shortest setting. The livewell system in the Ranger boats are pretty solid.

I see a lot of comments about small jigs 1/24, 1/32, etc. We used 1/8 hand tied (JigUm's "Zorro") for all our BP fishing, and if I'm not mistaken Ahn and his partner used 1/8 too. So the two first place teams had success with the heavier jig. Not saying either is right or wrong, just think it's all about confidence in what you're fishing.
Of course, we used 1/16 for all our dock shooting.

Come one October!!!

Cool to see Bobs jigs on TFF Anh. He was my mentor. Man was the best bridge fisherman I've ever seen. Miss him everytime I'm thumping em on Fork good. Everytime he would catch a good one he would giggle like a little school girl, even at 80yrs old. Bad Shad was his favorite color he tied.

Haha ...I don't know about that but I know we had lots of luck on our side. I'm ready ...will give you call soon.




We were lucky to keep all of our fish alive also. We would drained the live well half way every 2-3 hrs and replaced it with fresh water. Kept the recirculating pump running and never keep more than 10 fish ...and they will be lively as when we first caught them.



Yep! Love Bob Young's jigs. Got introduced to "Bad Shad" by a couple of float tubers on Fork one day years ago. Those guys didn't know me from adam but gave me a few to try and told me where to get some Like it so much, I ordered $300 worth ...wish I had order more lol.

i knew i recognized that jig.

Congrat's to all that fished and the winners!

I have always dreamed of what it would be like to fish a tournament with Anh.
Anh was generous enough to show me around lake Fork one time to help me with the boat lanes and where to fish. We were fishing timber and he was catching fish left and right and I could hardly get a bite!

Anh is one of the nicest gentleman you will ever find and in my books, the one person I would choose as a tournament partner if I could pick anyone!

WTG Guys!!!!

congrats AHN and LARRY..

Confucious said... BEWARE THE FEROCITY OF THE PATIENT MAN.

Congrats to the winners and those that earned checks. Well-deserved.

Kongrats to ALL who participated and placed!

Thats smile on Dub's face tells it all...must've had a few hawwwgs in that cooler!!!

Hey AJ; T-Dub always in a good mood; especially if he's fishin. That smile is infectious.