Paul Strouth was well known in the catfish community. He untimely death in 2016 left many in the community mourning. Paul was a quiet, but thoughtful man and well respected in catfish circles.
As part of the JKV Catfish Trail, Josh Vanover, tournament director, named their first event in 2017 in Paul Strouth’s honor. The event was held January 28, 2016 on Wheeler Lake in Alabama.
Seventy-six boats fished the inaugural event in pretty tough conditions. “The wind was blowing straight out of the west,” said Vanover. “It made it tough for the anglers on both Wheeler and Wilson. Both lakes experienced wind gusts up to 25 mph on tournament day.”
The first boat to weigh in at the 3 fish event was Justin Browning and Seth Wilson. As faith would have it their 138.40 pounds held up all day long to win the first Paul Strouth Memorial tournament. Browning and Wilson made the decision to come in early for a simple and smart reason.
“It got so rough on the lake and I knew we had a decent bag,” said Browning. “We just wanted to make sure we were going to be able to get back without anything happening.”
At that point they just had to sweat out the remaining boats coming to the scales. “I was worried, because down there in Alabama a bag like that is very beatable,” offered Browning. “If it hadn’t been for the wind and some very rough water I would have stayed on the lake till’ the end, but I think we made the right decision.”
The team chose dragging in deep water as their strategy for the day. “We drug baits most of the day,” said Browning. “We were in 30 to 50 foot of water. The fish wanted skipjack, so that’s what we gave them. The fish were bunched up in small areas. We caught between 20 to 25 fish on the day and culled 4 other fish over 34 inches. It was a good day except for the wind, which made it pretty rough on the way back to the ramp.”
“We stayed on Wheeler all day,” continued Browning. “I used Berkley E-CAT rods from Catfish Connection. I also used some of the old original E-CAT rods. I believe that our Elite Pro Cat rod holders helped as much as anything. They are awesome rod holders. With the wind as bad as it was you just can’t have your rods rolling back and forth.”
Andrew and Nick Han weighed in 117.60 pounds to claim the runner up slot. The team of brothers set their strategy based on weather conditions. “We knew the wind would be rough,” explained Andrew. “It was coming from the WSW, so the plan was to try and stay on the southern shore of Wheeler.”
“We were dragging baits with the Santee rig,” continued Andrew. “We were using skipjack that we had caught at Cumberland City on our way down Friday. Actually, I had forgotten my sonar so I had to download the Navionics app just for the contour mapping. We used the map to drag a long flat that was 35 to 38 feet deep.”
“My brother and me got a little lucky this weekend,” said Andrew humbly, in a Paul Strouth-like statement.
The top five were rounded out by Paul Mayfield and Richard White in third with 106.45 pounds. They also had the Big Fish of the tournament with a 74.05-pound Wheeler Lake blue.
Fourth place went to Dale Kerns and Ken Gatlin with 101.20 pounds.
The fifth-place spot was claimed by Chris Baker and Caleb Mcandas with 101.15 pounds.
For complete results and to keep up with the JKV Tournament Trail visit their Facebook page or click on their website at www.jkvcatfish.com.
Click here for more information on the Rogersville, AL area.
