CAT State Championship Results

The CAT State Crappie Championship is a two day event which concluded today on Lake Lewisville. There were 17 teams in DIV I and 14 Teams in DIV II. There were some good stringers brought to the scales both days and a 2.08 lb fish on day one caught by Chris Waters. DIV II champs were Todd Froebe, Clay Gann and Langdon Froebe with an impressive total of 19.85 lbs. DIV I champs were Jerry Hancock and James Pegram with 18.37 lbs.
Despite the predictions of large stringers, fishing conditions and weather always dictate what the fish do on any given day. And knowledge of the lake will determine who can find water with fish willing to bite when the wind is gusting to 25 mph.
Fish were caught all over the lake in water depths from 9 to 25 ft. This time of year the fish are beginning to move as fall approaches and people who found fish one and two weeks ago found out a lot of those fish had moved completely.

CAT paid the top 10 places in each DIV. The top 3 in Angler of The YEAR points in each DIV were also paid. There was a lot of cash given out at this end of year event. Also there were over 50 prizes given away at the annual awards banquet.

Receiving the Ron Canaster Sportsman of the Year Award was Alec Dyer.
Receiving the TOP CAT Award for continued support of CAT was Brian Spagnola, a very deserving recipient.

Here's the leader board for DIV II



Here's the DIV I leader board.

Congrats to all the toughies that fished today! Man that wind was brutal on land much less in the boat I bet. Congrats to the winners and placers! Well done!

Congratulations to all the contestants and especially to the winning teams.

Setting here this morning all sore from the beating we got on that ride back to the ramp yesterday reflecting on what we did. On Wednesday I found two pockets of fish in 3-4' water. Have no idea exactly why these 2 spots held better fish. Only the size of a truck bed but held some nice ones. We knew We would not be able to fish it Saturday. Had 3 brush piles in 10-12' water that was protected that were holding better fish. We knew we would need it Saturday.
We decided we would hammer the shallow stuff Friday and use it up. We fished shallow until noon on Friday. Caught 20 or so fish between 1.10-1.25. ran to the brush piles and picked up another 20 fish or so but never caught the kicker we hoped for. All solid 1.25 fish and after what I had seen in practice and heard from talking to people I thought 9.00 pounds a day would keep you close unless someone caught 2 kickers. luckily was in 2nd Friday right there. I wanted to be in 2nd after first day. Hate leading after day 1.
Saturday our plan was hammer the 3 brush piles. First 4 fish we caught were our best fish all day. By 8 am we had our 9 pounds. At noon I caught one that culled out the smallest 7. We caught 20 or so keepers but still no kicker. I knew wind would hurt a lot of teams and We felt ok as long as no one caught a couple big fish. We never got away from our plan and it worked. Never lost a fish that hurt us.
We caught everything on a 3 inch white/chart jigs I made and tipped them with a large minnow. When they would not bite I would go straight minnow but the small fish would bite so the large bait really helped on the better fish.
congrats to everyone who placed and thankful all made it through safe. Thanks to CAT for everything they do for Crappie fishing. Great club with the best group of fisherman. Feels great to compete again against some of the best in Texas.
Congrats to Paul and George for winning Anglers of the year again. They are still the best of the best in my book. Hats off to them.
Appreciate the kind words and support from everyone. Looking forward to next year.

Congrats to all!

Congrats Jerry/James and Todd/Clay/Langdon.

That was a fun tournament.

I was kind of glad Todd & Clay were in Div II cause they sure ran away from the field with their 11 lbs stringer. Great job & welcome to Div I guys

Div I ...a lot of teams was still in it after day 1. I was gung ho & determine to get 10 lbs the next day but what you want and what you can actually catch is a different story. Caught lots of 1 to 1.25lb fish ...but could never get that kicker fish.

Yep, the ride back to the ramp was crazy ...wet & wild

Ken, Larry Middleton caught the 2.08 fish not me. I just netted it.

CW

Prefished the area we fished twice and had 9-9.5 pounds each day so I felt pretty confident. We had a lot of spots to fish but very few I felt would produce big fish! And unfortunately nothing out of the wind I thought would produce big fish. With that in mind we hit it pretty hard Friday and prefished a lot of spots for Sat in between spots and spent an hour or two scouting and graphing. Friday for us was one of those days you get up and go crappie fishing for! We conservatively caught 200 crappie and kept 45. Our second best 7 Friday weighted 9.5 pounds!

Lots of folks at weight in and the dinner commented they saw us on the lake and that kinda had me and fly confused somewhat because some of the guys that said that there's no missing their boats and we didn't see em!! But with that in mind we set out 30 minutes earlier Sat to a strong S wind and a boat already on our starting spot from Friday. I could see a light down the way at another spot we liked so we made a early morning game change and went to a different spot and waited on 7 to drop lines. We rode that pile pretty hard both days but left there culling and with one good fish in the boat. We both lost good fish there as well. The next spot produced 2 good fish and by 945 I felt pretty confident. My goal was to catch 9 pounds the second day. Cause that with a 2.1 pound lead would mean second place team would have to do better than we did Friday and if they did my hats off to em!! We moved around some more on piles we could fish and put a few more pound and a little better fis in the boat but if was nothing like Friday!! Maybe 20 keepers all day. By noon I thought we had 7.5 pounds and might have blown it but I figured if I was struggling everybody else was too. Come to weight in and discovered the fish were a little bigger than I thought and we actually had 8.5 pounds or so. I didn't have any confidence in protected areas we fished so we fought the wind and waves all day taking waves over the bow of a 21' boat trying to feel a thump on 1/4 oz jigs. I was a zombie by weight in and a mess. I thought for another year we had let the state championship slip through our fingers. Last year a livewell malfunction on day 2 killed all our fish at noon and we had to start over now we're gonna blow a 2 pound lead!!!
Then at weight in all I heard was Alec and Bill had so many pigs they needed 2 coolers!! I wanted to puke!! Once it got down to the wire and they said we needed 7.91 to win I was pretty releaved when they set ours on the scale!! Man what a ride!! CAT has been a blast! Meeting lots of fine folks that are passionate about crappie fishing just as I am. Looking forward to D1 next year. We're gonna eat a lot of humble pie but it's a pretty good confidence booster to go out the way we did!!

See y'all in Jan!!

Congrats, You guys did an awesome job! You will be fine next year in D1. You proved you can fish with anyone.

Kongrats to all...big ups to the winners

I see lil man does know where the hawwwgs hang

That sucker did more fishing at the weight in than he did on the boat!! He caught a few dinks early on and said this lake stinks! We need to load up and go to Ray Roberts!! Then he slept most of the day and just woke up to bounce across the waves! He liked that part! Gotta give thanks to EP for the videos! I think several guys picked up spots from that! I like your music choices as well. Also to James and Carl for running blocker for us! It all made more sense to me when we saw ya'll Sat am and figured out half the folks thought you were us!!!

Fishing day two, in the wind...on the main lake....was a tough go. To do that by one's self was even tougher! I was whooped up! To see fish caught in so many different areas......but in no particular area was crazy. Bridges, brush, timber, 3ft.-30ft. I caught my biggest fish in 26ft. of water....a foot off the bottom. I had three more and lost them on day one. Got to love it. Here are a few pics.....rest will be on Facebook and CAT.

We were wondering why ppl we're following us lol, we were on good fish (1.00-1.75) on timber for 3 weeks literally until Friday morning . We fished bp's on two of our prefishing days and caught tons of fish nothing bigger than a pound.
Come Friday morning by 11 we had 3 keepers on timber biggest being 1.05 so we decided to head south to brush get our other 4 fish which we did on first pile and headed back to timber and completely struck out.
Day 2 we decided we were fishing brush all day and would just live with the results. We had 4 decent fish but just couldn't get anything going either day . Pretty frustrating to say the least.

Chris, I thought you were fishing by yourself Fri as I didn't see Larry. Sorry for the slight Larry.

You can see from the good reports that fishing changed a lot in the past two weeks. Usually this time of year, the water cools and mixes and the summer thermocline disappears. When that happens, fish scatter everywhere. The crappie also start to migrate to deeper water preparing for the coming winter. As some of us found out Friday morning, the fish that were there 2 weeks earlier or even the day before had moved. Fish in deeper water are less affected by the wind and water temp changes and tend to be more consistent to locate.
However, in late Oct, nothing is a sure bet.
Except, you can't catch 'em if you don't go.

If you're interested in tournament crappie fishing, CAT is a good organization to join. There are plenty of prizes and cash given away.
For the two day State Champ, over $22,000 in cash and prizes were handed out.
At Crappie Fest, over $16,000 in cash was given out.
For the seven qualifier tournaments, over $14,000 in cash was given out.
But money is not what makes CAT a great organization. The friendships, learning experiences, fishing stories and general camaraderie are priceless. And support of junior anglers is a top priority.

You are right about that Ken. You can't find a better organization or a better group of fishermen than CAT and it's members!