Matt Weathers and Chris Kinworthy win
CatMasters at PK.
Now In its fifth year, The CatMasters at Possum Kingdom (PK) attracted 85 catfish teams to Possum Kingdom Lake for a two-day ACA Division 1 tournament. The lake is admittedly not a big catfish lake and it can be a tough bite in the winter. This year’s event posted some very nice 2-day weights.
The tournament is part of the ACA Tournament Alliance so competing ACA members are also competing for thousands of dollars in cash and prizes in the points race. Additionally, ACA members receive a chance to win a SeaArk Protégé boat package in a drawing at the end of the year.
Each team can be up to three anglers. Five fish can be brought to the scales each day. Light winds on Friday were replaced with higher winds on Saturday. It was a cold wintery weekend by Texas standards.
Teams could fish all of Possum Kingdom Lake with a river boundary of the Bunger Bridge at FM Road 1287. Tournament Director Bryan St Ama reported some pretty good weights for day 1 as more than 1,850 pounds were weighed and recorded.
“Anglers that know Possum Kingdom recognize that 5-fish weights in October can be fairly low,” said St Ama before the day two weigh-in. “We may have 1 or 2 teams hit the 60s but the average weight of 5 fish is normally in the 30-pound range. Yesterday we had 5 teams on day one that came in with more than 65 pounds.”
Day one ended with Team Cowtown Catfishing leading the 85 team field with 83.18 pounds. Following in second place was Team Here Kitty Kitty with 81.55 pounds. The third spot was held by Team Kataholics with 71.63 pounds and fourth place had Team Slick Kitty Slayers recording 70.68 pounds. The top five were rounded out by Team Baldwin which weighed 65.93 pounds on day one.
BIG FISH for day one was caught by Team Watts/Fowler with a 28.11 pound PK blue cat. The final day was set up to be a shootout with many teams in position to make a run at the leaders.
First Place and Overall Big Fish
Team Kataholics, Matt Weathers, and Chris Kinworthy teamed up to take the top spot on Possum Kingdom. They had a day one weight of 71.63 pounds which earned them the 3rd place spot after day 1. Day two added 79.74 pounds for a 2 day winning total of 151.37 pounds. Their day 2 bag included Big Fish of the day at 48.49 pounds which also gave them Overall Big Fish of the tournament. Overall Big Fish was sponsored by the PK Chamber of Commerce to the tune of $2,500.
Weathers and Kinworthy began day 1 with a strategy they put together in prefishing. Their time on the water before the tournament proved to be helpful on tournament fishing days.
“Our plan was to fish a bend in the old river channel,” reported Weathers. “We had marked fish in the area and caught a few while scouting. We stuck to the plan on the first day, but by 10:00 am all we had was a 12-inch fish in the box.”
Weathers said they were getting nervous because of the morning’s experience, but the bite turned on about that time and lasted for the rest of the day. Team Kataholics put 71-pound plus in the box and finish in the 3rd place spot after day 1.
“We started day 2 with the same plan in the same spot,” continued Weathers. “We sat on anchor in the same spot and by 10:00 on day 2 we had our fish in the box. The bite came early and we manage to put together a 79 pound plus weight for day 2.”
The team’s bait of choice was cut shad. They targeted deep water in the 50- to 80-foot range where they rigged with 10/0 hooks to catch their fish.
“All our bigger fish, 49, 20, and 15 pounds, came off of 2-inch pieces of cut shad,” instructed Weathers. “Big bait wasn’t the key to catching the bigger fish this weekend.”
“We learned that PK wasn’t a bad fishing lake once you learn how to fish it,” joked Weathers. “We probably caught a total of 30 to 35 fish in 2 days.”
Team Kataholics thanked their sponsors, D&M Concrete Construction and Cooper Lake Trophy Catfishing for supporting their adventure.
Second Place
The runner-up spot went to Team Xtreme Trophy Fishing. Milton Nieto, Trent Hall, and Manuel Moreno brought a 2-day total weight of 127.60 pounds to the scales to claim 2nd place.
“Fishing is always extremely tough at PK,” reported Nieto. “I fished the 2019 CatMasters and knew this lake would be extremely difficult. So Trent and I knew we had to spend at least 2 days prefishing to try to find a pattern.”
On day 1 of prefishing, the team hit their first spot. After looking at their maps and studying the area, everything they had hoped for was there.
“We found clouds of baitfish in about 30 to 35 feet of water,” recounted Nieto. “There were scaley predator fish on top feasting. We knew what would be under them.”
The team repeated the pattern on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The pattern produced about 39.00 pounds of fish on day 1 and had the team sitting in 17th place at the end of the day.
“For PK, sitting on 39 pounds and in 17th place, we knew that we had a lot of catching up to do,” continued Nieto. “We needed a good day two.”
Saturday came and day two began for Team Xtreme Trophy Fishing. The game plan was the same. They launched at 6:10 am and headed straight for the areas where they had been catching fish. They found at least 12 boats in the area that they had fished before. An assessment of the area led them to make a decision that paid off for them.
“We were not marking the same fish from previous days,” explained Nieto. “We were a bit disappointed. As we continued scanning for about 40 minutes longer, we were still not happy with what we were seeing. Then we made the decision to look at an area we had taken a minute to scan on Thursday as a backup plan.”
Hall eased the boat up around some trees and stumps where they immediately started marking fish. Their next set would be in shallower water.
“After marking fish after fish after fish, the decision was made to try it,” recalled Nieto. “We set up in about 17 feet of water. By 9:20 am we were culling fish. We marked and caught at least 20 fish in this spot.”
Around 10:45 am one of their Hellcat Rods folded over with the tip in the water. After a quick reel down and a nice fight, a whopper of a blue was pulled out of the trees.
“We had the biggest fish I had ever caught out of PK,” said Nieto. “It was a 33-pound whopper that hit a massive shad head. We knew we had 80-pounds plus and we knew we would compete at the weigh-in. But never did we expect our weight would get us all the way into 2nd place.”
Nieto as captain of the team, and Hall as boat captain for the weekend, sent thanks to God and their families for allowing them to fish and compete. They also thanked their sponsors that include Catch The Fever Rods, Kast King USA, Nocturnal Nation Hooks, Kitty Chasers Tackle Company, Fat Rooster Planer Boards, Monster Rod Holders, and MulTbar Rod Racks.
Third Place
Bringing in the 3rd place bag was Team Toy Shop made up of Michael Reed, Aarron Hagen, and Dalton Mitchell. They brought 125.11 pounds to the scales to earn the third-place honors.
Team Toy Shop fished in the river both days, describing day 1 as a very cold morning for Texas boys. They moved around looking for fish. They finally connected by casting fresh cut shad into shallow water that ranged from 2 to 6 feet deep where they could Power Pole down. There were some spots where they could bank up. They finished the day in 7th place with 57.58 pounds and in striking distance of the leaders. They thought the cold weather seemed to bring on the good bites in the shallow water but it didn’t help on day 2.
“Day two was a different story,” recalled Reed. “We headed back up into the river that morning and fished for around two hours. We finally found a 2-pound channel cat. We moved all over the place up there and just could not get any good bites.”
Lunchtime past them by and at 1:00 pm all they had was 1 baby channel cat. They knew they had to try something else. They decided to head to a hole they liked and had fished before.
“As we arrive there was another team close by,” continued Reed. “We made a new plan and headed to deeper water. We tied to a tree in 25 feet of water. That was the sweet spot and we were able to catch all of our day 2 fish in about an hour.”
“I would like to thank Leddy French, owner of the Toy Shop, all of the CatMaster crew for the wonderful tournaments they put on, and to the PK Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring the Overall Big Fish Award, even though we didn’t get it,” joked Reed. “Finally thanks to all the anglers that participated.”
Big Fish Day One
Johnathan Watts and Carson Fowler brought in the Big Fish on day 1 with a 28.11-pound Possum Kingdom blue cat.
Other Winners
With 85 registered boats the CatMasters at PK paid 9 places. The remaining teams and weights are listed below along with the Youth Angler Award, Top Finishing Female Award, and the Veteran Big Fish Award.
4th Place – Zach Clay and Jr Owen – 129.58
5th Place – Chris & Kyli Baldwin – 97.66
6th Place – Trevor Wheat – 97.26
7th Place – Chris Menasco – 93.19
8th Place – Rummel Guide Service – 89.20
9th Place – Devin Hogan, Denver Zinn, Alli Fortney – 88.64
Youth Angler – Stevi McDonald fishing with Shay and Courtney McDonald
Top Finishing Female Angler – Kli Baldwin fishing with Chris Baldwin
Veteran Big Fish – Melvin Clay fishing with Zach Clay
Final Thoughts
Possum Kingdom Lake produced better on day 2 with larger fish coming to the scales. After 2 days of competitive fishing, more than 3,405 pounds of catfish came to the CatMaster scales in a very successful and well-run tournament.
Tournament director, Bryan St. Alma offered praise for the volunteer staff, the sponsors, and the anglers saying, “We could not do it without the support of a lot of people. I want to thank them all and invite you to visit our website to see exactly who supports us. You can also check out future event dates, information on the points race, and other relevant information.”
