KingKat Kicks Off 2023 with Sweet Sixteen Invitational Tournament on Santee Cooper’s Lake Moultrie
Sixteen invited teams will compete on Lake Moultrie beginning with a Team-on-Team competition in a Sweet Sixteen bracket-style format.
by Ron Presley
KingKat organizers continue their efforts to offer catfish anglers more types of competitive catfishing by presenting the Sweet Sixteen Tournament on Lake Moultrie, SC. Anglers will have plenty of water to cover with close to 110,000 acres surrounded by 315 miles of shoreline on the largest man-made lake in the state.
Bob Denen, the new owner of the KingKat tournament trail, announced the invitational bracket-style 3-day tournament last summer. The process to develop the field began with invitations to the top 16 team captains from the 2022 points race to fish the tournament. Those captains were then allowed to pick a co-angler(s) as long as the co-angler fished with the captain in a 2022 King Kat Tournament event. Teams could consist of no more than 3 anglers per boat.
A captains’ meeting will be held at the Palmetto Shores RV Resort, 5215 Dingle Pond Road, Summerton, SC 29148. The gathering includes late sign-in from 5 to 6 pm with the mandatory captains’ meeting beginning at 6 pm. It is important to note that all team members MUST be present at ALL Captain’s Meetings. The meeting is open to the public.
Fishing is limited to Lake Moultrie. Anglers may fish the waters from the upper lake boundary at Pack’s Trussell to the Lake Moultrie Dam. Team weights start over each day.
The three-day event begins on Thursday, January 26, 2023, with a Sweet Sixteen bracket-style competition. The initial head-to-head competitors are established by random drawing at Wednesday night’s Captain Meeting. Those 16 teams from day one move on to a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket for Friday’s competition.
The bracket fishing continues on Friday with the winning teams facing off against other winning teams and losing teams facing off against other losing teams. Friday is also designated as Big Fish Friday.
After Friday’s weigh-in, there will be 4 undefeated teams remaining and 12 teams who either won 0 or 1 day. On Saturday the top 4 teams are fishing for 1st thru 4th place and everyone else is fishing for 5th place.
The competition will end on Saturday when the top 4 teams begin fishing at 6:30 am and all other anglers will start fishing at 7:00 am.
The Sweet Sixteen is a trailering event where at the end of each day all boats are loaded and trailered to the weigh-in at Palmetto Shores RV Resort. No boats will come to the weigh-in line via water.
If a day’s competition ends in a tie, the 1st-day Tie Breaker will be the Big Fish Weight for that day. On Friday and Saturday, the Tie Breaker will be the overall weight of the two previous days.
The B’n’M pro staff team of Ryan Lawrence and Mark Blauvelt constitutes one of the teams competing in the event. They finished 2nd in the 2022 points competition to earn the invitation to the KingKat Sweet Sixteen event. Team Captain Ryan Lawrence received the invite from KingKat and contacted Blauvelt to join him.
Lawrence and Blauvelt made an early January prefishing trip to Santee in preparation for the Sweet Sixteen event.
“Several things come into play at Santee Cooper,” noted Blauvelt. “The weather and winds can change hourly and anglers need to be ready and willing to change with the conditions.”
Local anglers agree that just a little wind can make fishing really tough. And, in a three-day tournament, successful anglers are going to need to find fish three days in a row if they have a chance of winning.
“You will need to find solid fish on all 3 days,” confirmed Blauvelt. “It is unlikely that the weather/wind will give you a chance to fish the same places all 3 days so prefishing will be really important.”
“Finding the correct bait and enough of it to use for 3 days is always a challenge,” added Blauvelt.
Lawrence and Blauvelt plan to mix anchoring, dragging, and drifting into their strategy. They say they will be prepared to change techniques depending on the conditions.
“We are looking forward to the new style of bracket fishing,” concluded Blauvelt. “We are also looking forward to fishing the top-rated Santee Cooper area!”
Note:
All of the official rules for 2023 KingKat Events must be followed in the Sweet Sixteen Tournament. No Information may be purchased, bartered, or solicited from any person who entered official tournament waters two weeks before the Sweet Sixteen Tournament.
For more information visit the KingKat website and follow them on Facebook.
