Cole Bauer and Ray Waldrop Win MRM Bama Blues in Alabama
Big Fish and Second Place went to Andy Thompson and Mike Sanders.
by Ron Presley
The MRM Bama Blues kicked off the tournament season with an American Catfishing Association (ACA) Tournament Alliance Division 1 event. The annual holiday event is highly anticipated because of the big fish destination that Decatur offers.
Tournament directors Chris and Cory Ramsey (Pipeline Tackle) have traditionally scheduled the event around the beginning of the new year allowing anglers to begin the year with a quality tournament.
The ACA Tournament Alliance event attracted 108 boats. The Captains Meeting was held at Ingalls Harbor Pavilion and Event Center and the launch took place out of Ingalls Harbor. The tournament also provided anglers with an entry to win a SeaArk boat package to be given at the end of the season as part of the ACA Tournament Alliance giveaway.
Prefishing included the Monster Week Big Fish competition on Wednesday and Thursday. Anglers could bring in a big fish to enter and then return to prefishing. The day one winners were Dan Layne and Jon Peglow with a 69.45-pound blue. The day two winners were Andy Williams and Rhys Eubank with a 61.20-pound blue. Each of those teams earned a check for $1,000.
One hundred-eight teams competed in the 3-fish limit tournament. At the end of the day, fans and anglers witnessed 61 teams come to the scales with 176 fish weighing 4,777 pounds. Additionally, many new personal best catfish were caught during the tournament and Monster Week.
First Place
The top spot at MRM Bama Blues went to Cole Bauer and Ray Waldrop. Team Boats and Hoes checked in a 3-fish limit that topped the scales at 160.35 pounds to earn the 1st place check.
Bauer and Waldrop arrived in Decatur on Tuesday night and spent a lot of time searching for bait.
“We spent about 90% of our time looking for bait,” noted Waldrop. “We did get time to fish for about an hour or two on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The skipjacks were really hard to catch but Friday afternoon we caught enough to fish Saturday.”
On Saturday morning they put their strategy to work by beginning where Bauer had caught a 43-pound fish the day before in shallow water.
“We were anchoring in 5 to 10 feet of water,” reported Waldrop. “That was our plan for the day—to anchor on the structure that we had found the day before. We gave each spot about 45 minutes and then we moved on.”
The first spot was a bust so they moved out to the river ledge to hit some deeper water. They wanted to see what was going on with the fish they had found and wait for the sun to warm up that shallow water.
“We caught our under out there in the deeper water,” Waldrop said. “Then we moved back into the shallow water and caught a 21- and a 30-pound fish.”
Next, the team waited for an hour for a bass boat to move off the back where they wanted to go to. After the bass boat left they approached the area using side-scan and spotted a big fish sitting behind a log in about 8 feet of water.
“We marked that fish and set up on him,” explained Waldrop. “Dang if he didn’t bite! He weighed 68 pounds. That was about 12:30.”
They stayed in the area for another hour with no luck. They moved again and struck out again and decided to go back to the spot where they started.
“It was about 2:30 pm when we got to our spot,” stated Waldrop. “Cole tossed a little skipjack head up in a tree top that was right beside a boat dock. Bam! he caught our biggest fish of the day. It was 2:48 pm. The fish weighed 83 pounds when we landed it. On the way to the scales, it couldn’t hang on to whatever it had eaten so we lost some weight. We decided to end our day and make for the scales. I have been dreaming of a day like this for 20 years!”
Waldrop rarely likes to weigh early, but that day he did. With a livewell full of fish, he chose in favor of the fish. They weighed and recorded 160.35 pounds about 30 or so minutes into the weigh-in. They took the Millennium Hot Seats as the leading team for the remainder of the weigh-in which lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Waldrop and Bauer thanked several folks for their help and support, including Jamie K Outdoors of Fort Lawn, SC, Alan and Brad Long of Fish Bite Rod Holders, the Yadkin Mastercatters crew for all their support, Mac Moneta, Bill Sutton, David Kingsmore and Rodney Locklear for all the help they gave, and to MRM Bama Blues for a great run tournament.
“And my wife Tracey,” concluded Waldrop. “She helped me get all my mess together so I could even go fish this week.”
Second Place and Big Fish
The runner-up spot went to Team Thompson/Sanders. Andy Thompson and Mike Sanders brought 149.20 pounds to the scales to earn the 2nd place check. Their bag included the Big Fish of the tournament at 89.40 pounds to add to their payday.
Thompson and Sanders decided to fish Wilson lake for the tournament. They launched the boat at Pleasant Grove Boat Ramp and locked through to Wilson.
“We spent the majority of the day dragging big baits,” reported Thompson. “We were targeting ledges in 35 to 55 feet deep water. After marking a few good fish around structure we got started.”
About 45 minutes into the first drag they had a 55-pound fish in the boat. As they filled the livewell with water another rod doubled over.
“Then we boated a 46-pounder,” noted Thompson. “And then a 20-pound fish after that. The bite slowed down so we decided to try a different ledge. Just as we finished getting all the rods out Mike’s rod doubled over and the drag started screaming.”
Sanders fought the first fish at the new spot for quite a while. When he got it to the boat they thought it weighed in the lower 90-pound range. It smashed Sander’s previous personal best. At the weigh-in, the big blue pulled the scales to 89.40 pounds and earned Big Fish of the tournament.
“We finished the day catching a few smaller fish,” Thompson said. “We were trying to upgrade our under fish. I think fresh bait was probably the most important factor in the tournament. We spent from sunrise to sunset catching skipjack on Friday so we would have fresh bait for the tournament.”
“We would like to thank Mad Katz rods, Dirty South Dragging Weights, Maci’s Fish ‘N Finds, and Parks Planer Boards for their support and the whole crew at MRM Bama Blues for putting on a great tournament,” concluded Thompson.
Third Place
Team Moses, Tyler Moses and Keith Moses, weighed in a 3-fish limit weighing 115.65 pounds to earn the 3rd-place check.
Team Moses chose to drag as their method of fishing. They reported a nice day of fishing on Wheeler except for one tough culling decision.
“It was about as nice as conditions can be for winter fishing,” reported Tyler. “It seems like every tournament here has to be right behind a cold front with 25 mph winds, but not this one.”
“We were using skipjack for bait,” noted Tyler. “The bite was fairly slow but we were confident the fish were there so we stuck with our plans. We ended the day with 11 fish, five of which were overs.”
The team confronted a culling decision when they caught what they hoped would be an under. Their decision would reduce their total weight by 7 pounds compared to the under they kept.
“We caught a 24-pound fish that measured 34 inches even,” explained Tyler. “We measured him half a dozen times and sometimes he would brush over the line and sometimes he would be short. We took the safe route and released him. As it turned out it didn’t matter either way. That was our dilemma of the day!”
“We’d like to thank Cook’s Boats and Motors in Troy MO for keeping us in good boats, TWC rods for keeping us in good rods, and Show Me Catfishing for keeping me in a job,” joked Tyler.
Fourth and Fifth Place
The top 5 were rounded out by Donnie and Lonnie Fountain in 4th place with 115.15 pounds. Michael Clark and Brian Meares took 5th place with 114.25 pounds. More results can be found on the MRM Bama Blues Facebook page.
Top Youth
The Top Youth award goes to the highest-weight boat with a youth on board. The 2023 Top Youth went to Peyton
Childress who was fishing with her dad Kevin Childress and Justin Arthur. They weighed 100.07 pounds to earn Peyton the $1,000 Top Youth award.
Eleven-year-old Peyton is no stranger to catfishing. She is the daughter of Kevin and Michelle Childress and often spends time on the boat with her dad. Her favorite thing about fishing is meeting new people. She is also the cover girl of the December 2022 Issue of CatfishNOW.
Top Lady
Samantha Caudill was fishing the MRM Bama Blues event with Matt Russell under the team name of Sic Outdoors. They teamed up to take 9th place in the competition and give Samantha the Top Lady award. They weighed a total of 109.80 pounds including their biggest blue at 59 pounds.
Final Thoughts
With more than 100 boats on Wheeler and Wilson Lake, the quality of fish did not disappoint the organizers or the anglers. Given the Big Fish weight of 89 pounds and a 1st place weight of over 165 pounds, these lakes continue to be a great destination for anglers seeking to catch big blues and posting new personal bests. Anglers and organizers are also excited about the merger of Bama Blues and MRM.
“We are excited about the merger of the Ramsey Brothers and the MRM crew,” stated Chris Ramsey who co-directs the event with his brother Cory. “Being able to bring the Monster Week concept to Decatur did not disappoint. We had multiple fish brought in on Wednesday and Thursday weighing over 60 pounds.”
“We want to thank the Decatur Morgan County Tourism Board, SeaArk Boats, Dry Creek Marine, and all the other sponsors that make events like this possible,” concluded Chris. “Lastly, we want to thank the anglers for making this event one of the best in the country with their professionalism and dedication to the sport.”
For more information on Bama Blues, check them out on Facebook or their website.
