Two Hundred Pound Bag Wins
Santee Lakes Catfish Club Tournament
Team Catastrophic Failure weighs 200.15 pounds
in 3-fish limit on Moultrie.
Santee Lakes Catfish Club (SLCC) kicked off its 2022 schedule with a tournament on Santee Cooper on Saturday, January 15, 2022. The two Santee Cooper lakes are Lake Marion, South Carolina’s largest lake, and Lake Moultrie, the state’s third-largest. Moultrie is the lower lake and a favorite of many catfish anglers. The tournament was held out of Canal Lakes Fish Camp.
“The morning began windy and cold,” reported popular weighmaster Mark Coburn. “It remained that way throughout the day. It took about a 67-pound average to capture 1st place. A 52 pound average to finish 2nd, and a 45 pound average to finish 3rd! Santee is really producing giant catfish in the past few years.”
“It was an exciting weigh-in for SLCC,” added tournament director Ralph Willey. “We had several teams head to the weigh-in confident they had a 1st place finish and the total weights kept piling up! More than 1330 pounds were brought to the scales from 17 teams. It was the most ever weighed in at one of our club tournaments. Seven teams weighed in 100 pounds plus.”
“It was extremely exciting to see Team Catastrophic Failures bring a second 100 pounds plus fish to the scales in less than one year,” continued Willey. “Last February, Catastrophic Failure team member Brad McCall reeled in and weighed a 103-pound blue. This year, Brad was unable to fish the tournament so his long-time fishing partner, Mike Durham, invited Vern Reynolds to substitute and Vern reeled in a 106.62 pig to cinch the top spot with 200.15 pounds and Big Fish!”
“We are very honored to have Brad and Mike as members of the SLCC,” concluded Willey. In my opinion, they are two of the best catfisherman in the sport!”
First Place and Big Fish
Team Catastrophic Failure, made up of Mike Durham and Vern Reynolds, brought a 3 fish limit to the scales to claim the top honors. Their total weight of 200.15 pounds included Big Fish of the day at 106.62 pounds and lifted another angler into the 100-pound club.
“We fished the lower lake, near Bonneau,” recalled Durham. “Somewhere between the blastoff at Canal Landing and the lake my transducer failed. We lost everything except GPS.”
Without sonar to assist them the team considered going to Russellville and use the NE wind to drift and hopefully run across some fish.
“We got there and the wind was perfect,” said Durham. “But my gut didn’t like it. It is not usually productive to randomly drift and hope. So I turned around and went to Bonneau where we tend to do well in the winter. There are more ledges and ditches to key on with my map.”
The team began fishing on the rope in about 8 to 10 feet of water. They set up at the head of a ditch and caught 3 fish that went about 10 pounds each before deciding to drift fish.
“We started drifting with the wind,” Durham explained. “We were lining up likely ledges and ditches as we covered water until we could get a bite. The plan was to hopefully get a good bite and then just repeat that short drift all day.”
The team’s first drift resulted in a couple more fish in the 10- to 12-pound range and one that went a little more than 40 pounds. The 40 pounder bit in an odd spot that felt too random to Durham so they decided to move.
“We moved to one more spot before settling down,” offered Durham. “ It paid off! In about a .4 mile stretch of ledge we caught one fish in the mid-twenties and a 52 pounder.”
The move was a good decision. While the anglers worked on culling their bag after the 52 came to the boat, another rod went down. It was the 106.
“The fight lasted about 5 to 6 minutes,” Durham stated. “But she never really stood a chance against our Mad Katz rod. By the time we got everything settled we had blown into bad water so we cranked up and made that drift again right before going to weigh in.”
The spot delivered again with a 31-pound cat. They had fished all day using perch and gizzard shad with most of the fish coming on the shad. They were not sure which bait the big fish ate, because it was on the rod right beside the 52. One of them was perch, the other gizzard shad.
“It was a great day,” concluded Durham. “ We want to thank Matt Knight and Mad Katz for the awesome gear we used. Thanks also to Ralph Willey and everyone associated with Santee Lakes Catfish Club for giving us great tournaments to fish.”
Other Winners
Second Place—The runner-up spot went to Les and Angela Pence with their total weight of 152.67 pounds.
Third Place—David Kingsmore and Andy Spoon weighed 137.86 pounds to claim the third-place honors.
Robbie Chance and Dave Duger weighed in an impressive 126.43 pounds and Robbie Nelson and Kevin Driggers brought 110.3 pounds to the scale.
Upcoming Events
The next big event on Santee is the Santee Big Cat Brawl on March 18 and 19, 2022 with Coburn once again tending the scales and Willey directing. The event will take place out of Black’s Camp and Restaurant. Keep up with the Big Cat Brawl and details on their upcoming tournament by clicking here.
You can follow Santee Lakes Catfish Club on their Facebook page for details of coming events.
