Fifty-eight boats competed in the Excel Boats event that was billed as a warm up to the Mississippi River Monsters tournament the following weekend. It all took place on the Big Muddy out of Memphis, TN. Competing anglers launched and returned to the Mud Island boat ramp on Saturday, September 1, 2018, and then returned to the same ramp for weigh-in.
Anglers came from all across the nation to compete and they were greeted with a beautiful day for fishing. Anglers representing Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, and Alabama were all present in the top five teams.
The event paid the top nine places plus big fish. J. Paul Jackson (Excel Boats) and George Young Jr. (Mississippi River Monsters) made the award presentations assisted by the event’s weighmaster, Jeremy Coe (Cabela’s King Kat Tournament Trail).
Following the weigh-in at Memphis’s Mud Island, Coe described the prefishing weather on Friday as sun and rain as anglers dealt with intermittent rain storms. On tournament day the weather was sunny and just plain hot.
When the dust settled, the Tennessee team of Cedric Poynor and Randy Dodd had claimed the top spot with 105.35 pounds that included the big fish at 53 pounds. They found their winning fish after a day of prefishing.
“Cedric and I didn’t get in much prefishing,” reported Dodd. “We were able to get away one day last week to do some scouting. We found one stretch of water about 200 yards long with a little cover in it. We marked about three fish that appeared on the sonar to be decent. We continued to look for other spots with good current, cover, etc.”
On tournament morning Dodd and Poyner headed for the spot where they had marked the big fish while prefishing. At that point, they had no idea that they would be weighing in early, but the health of a big fish became their top priority.
“We caught our two big fish within the first hour,” said Dodd. “The rest of the day was a slow grind trying to fill out our five fish limit with some good unders.”
“We caught our fish bumping bottom using fresh skipjack,” added Poyner. “We were blessed that the fish we found prefishing were there and were hungry.”
“Our big fish wasn’t wanting to lay right in the live well,” continued Poyner. “We kept burping it to help it along. When we finally had a weight that we thought would do pretty well we decided that it’s better to go weigh in early and put our fish back than to risk more stress on the fish.”
Dodd and Poyner agreed with other anglers that described the bite as slow, with big fish and/or concentrations of fish were pretty much nonexistent on tournament day. They ended up weighing three average unders to go with the two decent fish. The team caught seven fish on the day.
Second place went to the B’n’M Poles team of Jeremy Ransom and Travis Hunter. The team traveled from Missouri to compete. Their runner-up weight pulled the scales to 97.70 Pounds.
Ransom and Hunter fished upriver from Mud Island using their B’n’M Bumping rods to claim their spot. They said it was a tough bite and they just had to fish hard. They caught about nine fish on the day.
Bringing up third place was another team from Tennessee. Chris Peyton, Scott Mathis, and Jeff Kirkpatrick weighed 97.45 pounds to claim their spot.
The team caught eight fish for the day, indicating that it was “real tough fishing.” The team from Ripley, TN reported that they would be back to fish the MRM event on Sept. 8th.
Fourth place went to Donnie and Lonnie Fountain. The twin brothers from Georgia brought a weight of 87.20 pounds to the scales.
Lonnie, from Ranger, GA, and Donnie from Jasper, GA, were fresh off a second-place win at Cabela’s King Kat event in Paducah, KY the previous weekend.
“It was miserably hot and the bite was slow,” reported Lonnie. “We missed two fish that just never got hooked. We anchored for a while then bumped for a while. We are looking forward to giving it another shot come the main tournament.”
Rounding out the top five was the B’n’M Poles team of Brandy Brooks and Jody Adkins from Alabama. They weighed 83.15 pounds to claim the fifth spot. Their big fish of the day was the second-place big fish at 44.65 pounds.
“We got in the water to prefish about noon on Friday,” reported Adkins. “We decided to check some of our previous fishing holes to see what was there. We weren’t able to mark any good fish and really wasn’t seeing the numbers of fish we normally see.”
Brooks and Adkins pulled over to the side of the river to let a big barge pass. The flotilla was six barges wide and seven barges deep. Little did they know that the pause would help them determine where to start fishing on tournament day.
“We marked some good hooks while we waited on the barge to pass,” said Adkins. “We decided that they were the biggest and best thing we had seen yet. So, we decided that would be the first place we fish on tournament day.
After a 4:30 launch on tournament day they drifted over several spots waiting for the 6:30 am start time.
“We had drifted over several spots and was seeing a lot more fish,” offered Adkins. “We decided to bottom bounce thru them. On our first drift, we had two good bites at the same time. One was a really good fish but the hook pulled. We rebaited and went back up above them and bounced back thru them again.”
On the second drift, Brooks hooked her river monster that weighed nearly 45 pounds and ended up being second big fish for the tournament. After that drift, they moved and used their B’n’M Bumping Rods to bump straight shorelines with water consistently in the 40-foot range. They added five or six unders on skipjack fillets.
“We are planning on fishing all week,” concluded Adkins. “We hope to mark some more good spots and big fish for the big tournament.”
The Remaining Top Ten Catfish Teams
6th Place – Larry Muse, Frank Meadors, andMike Follin – 82.75
7th Place – Jake Derhake and Wade Kaminski – 78.85
8th Place – Tyler Moses and Jason Jackson – 78.35
9th Place – Chris Souders and Nick Conway – 74.75
10 Place – Roy Harkness and Chris Stout – 71.55
Mississippi River Monsters Tournament Director George Young Jr. ended the day on the King Kat Stage with reminders for the coming week.
Monster Week Daily Big Fish Challenge – The hours for Monster Week weigh-in are Sunday thru Thursday (Sept. 2nd-6th) from 7am-5pm at the Mud Island South Boat Ramp. If you plan on coming to weigh-in a fish please call or text Jeremy Coe at 270-804-5012 so he can meet you at the bottom of the boat ramp with the scale.
The MRM Angler Round Up and Expo – On September 7 and 8 there will be a Catfish Expo set up in Southwest Parking lot of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. Vendors will be on hand to demonstrate the catfishing equipment and accessories they provide. Duck Dynasty’s John Godwin will be on hand for autographs.
Seminars – On Friday afternoon there will be a set of seminars beginning at 1:45 and continuing until the last one scheduled at 4:30 is complete. Seminar speakers include Paul Blackwell, James “Big Cat” Patterson, the Masingale Brothers, and Phil King.
Mississippi River Monsters Captains Meeting – On Friday, September 7 the Captains Meeting will take place at the Eugene Wood Community Center, 212 West Polk, West Memphis, AR beginning at 5:00 pm.
MRM Tournament Day – Saturday, September 8th he gates at Mud Island will open at 3:00 am for entry. Anglers will fish from 7:00 am until 3:00 pm. The weigh-in will be held at the Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid. The public is invited to attend. There are bound to be some big Mississippi River catfish weighed in. The 2017 event weighed in 325 fish, totaling 5,165 pounds!
