The highly anticipated Santee Cooper Big Cat Quest 2018 shined brightly in only its second year of operation. Last year’s event was showered with praise after 76 teams, from 11 different states participated in the inaugural event.
This year the event, held out of Black’s Camp and Restaurant, was even better. The already popular event attracted 108 boats and 279 participating anglers. There were more sponsors, more spectators, another set of championship belts for the big fish winners in the youth and adult divisions, and new this year was the Monster Cat Quest rings for the overall winners.
The captains meeting included a message from preacher Mark Pollard. He gave a short message about Jesus and salvation and prayed over the tournament and everyone in it.
An exciting weigh-in had weights pushing the 300-pound mark with some mighty big fish in the Friday and Saturday event that took place on April 13 and 14, 2018. Anglers were competing for a payout of more than $20,000. A sponsor product drawing added to the excitement and distributed a bunch of product to many of the anglers.
When the weigh-in was over, and the weights tallied, it was Joshua Coggins and Eric Hinson that would be wearing the first ever Santee Cooper Monster Cat Quest Championship Rings. In a tournament that allowed 5 fish each day, they claimed top honors with only 8 fish in their two days of fishing. They topped the leaderboard with a two-day total weight of 288.4 pounds.
Coggins and Hinson had finished day one with 109 pounds. That left them tied for 7th place, but only 22 pounds out of the lead. They were in position for a move up the leaderboard on day two.
“We stuck to our game plan on day two,” reported Coggins. “With a little bit of luck, it paid off. We anchored up and put two bruiser blues (58 & 51 pounds) in the boat early. and capped it off with 38 and 31 pounders drifting later in the morning.”
“We fished humps off the channel just outside the canal in the lower lake,” added Hinson. “Most of the fish were caught in 11-18 feet of water. The bite was early and we used river herring, gizzard shad, and perch. Most of our fish were caught with the herring. We didn’t catch anything after noon.”
Coggins credited his Rail Splitter Rods for getting the job done on the hefty Santee Cooper blue catfish and helping the team earn $7,500 dollars.
“I can’t believe we ended up having 179 pounds in only four fish,” concluded Coggins. “But it was enough to bring home that championship ring!”
Following close behind was the team of Evan Martin and Larry Godwin. They weighed an incredible 286.8 pounds to claim the runner-up spot and earn $3,736.
“We only prefished one day,” offered Martin. “We only caught a couple fish and didn’t have high hopes for the spots we chose but also didn’t want to gamble on spots we didn’t fish. We anchored up all day in shallow water holes about 15 feet deep.”
Martin and Godwin observed that the fish they were catching were puking up clams which led them to believe the clams were stacked up in those shallow water holes.
“Both of our big fish came early in the morning,” reported Martin. “The water was really active with lots of bait jumping around. The rule is to follow the bait to find the fish. We did and I guess we got lucky enough to have two studs swim by our bait while feeding on the clam beds.”
“We caught seven fish a day with a couple triple hookups,” concluded Martin. “Those multiple hookups resulted in lots of line tangling chaos!”
Martin and Godwin also earned the Big Fish award of $3,340 and the Heavyweight Championship Belt that went with it. They weighed a 70.4-pound blue to claim the braggin’ rights that go with Big Fish. They had held the Big Fish weight on day one with a 66 pounder but beat his own weight on day two.
Other Winners
3rd place – $1,792 – Mike Durham and Brad McCall – 263.10 pounds
4th place – $1,468 – Mark, Owen, Neil, and Michelle Stanley – 221.8 pounds
5th place – $1,144 – Robert Couick and Glenn Martin – 215.7 pounds
6th place – $820 – Randy Reinhardt and Jimmy Caldwell – 215.4 pounds
Youth Big Fish honors and a check for $150 and the Youth Heavyweight Belt went to Owen Stanley with a 37.6-pound blue cat.
Owen was a repeat angler at the tournament, having fished it last year too. Owen also fishes the Southeastern Catfish Trail and Cabela’s King Kat Trail.
A no-weight prize of $400 on day-two went to Greg Payton.
SeaArk Boats Bonus
1st place – $1,000 – Terrence Springs and Kenneth Edwards – 202.5 pounds
2nd place – $500 – Michael Hanks and Brent Powell – 177.4 pounds
3rd place – $250 – Eric and Marya Maloy Jenkins, and Olivia Osteen – 143 pounds
Concluding Remarks
Scattered comments at the weigh-in praised the organization and operation of the tournament. Several anglers commented on the addition of the fish slide for returning fish to the water and the organizer’s efforts to take good care of the fish.
“The tournament went pretty good,” said Jimmy Holbrook who co-directed the tournament with Chris Gains. “I felt like the weigh-in line ran pretty good, especially since 92 of the 108 teams weighed in on day one. I think people really liked our heavyweight belts and championship rings this year. We paid out over $20,000 and we are very thankful for all our great sponsors who contributed to make it a success.”
“We tried to improve on last year’s tournament to make this one better,” added Holbrook. We worked really hard to keep the weigh-in lines moving and added a fish slide this year to help with the release of the fish. The health of these fish is very important to us. We were also able to have a huge stage for the weigh-in this year that the anglers got to come up on.”
“We had a big turn out with 279 anglers fishing it,” concluded Holbrook. “Besides the cash, we had plaques for 1st thru 3rd and championship rings for first place. We also brought back our heavyweight belts for big fish. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we are glad to be home and get a little rest.”
Chris Gains was equally pleased with the tournament. “Everything ran smooth,” said Gains, who also served as the weighmaster. “We were also able to raise $2,100 for a 6-year-old little girl with brain cancer.”
A fitting end to a successful event!
