TCO Win Goes to Nathan Dahlstrom, Jesse Ryan, and Tyson Emery
by Ron Presley,
Photos courtesy of Twisted Cat Outdoors by Tom Stolze
Big Fish honors also claimed by the winning team.
Twisted Cat Outdoors (TCO) catfish tournament trail visited Burlington, Iowa on September 21, 2024. The trail was returning to Burlington after not being there for several years. Angler anticipation before the tournament was high as mid-September is prime time for great catfish action in the area.
Early reports supported those expectations with an active bite and several tournament-size fish caught. Big channel cats and flatheads were the expectation since the TCO had not weighed a big blue cat over the last 10 years.
The event attracted 50 teams to fish the 42-mile-long Pool 19 on the Mississippi River. Anglers were allowed to lock up to fish the tributaries, but could not lock down to Pool 20. Fishing began at 7:00 am and ended at 3:00 pm. Anglers were required to be back at the dock by 4:30 and place a token in a red bucket to verify their return.
The weigh-in was on the riverfront in downtown Burlington. When all the weights were recorded the top weight and Big Fish honors went to the same team with five impressive channel cats that weighed nearly 60 pounds and a Big Fish at nearly 14 pounds.
First Place and Big Fish 
The top spot at Burlington went to Nathan Dahlstrom, Jesse Ryan, and Tyson Emery. They teamed up to bring a 5-fish limit to the scales that weighed 59.42 pounds. Their bag of cats included the Big Fish of the tournament at 13.92 pounds. The team earned the $6,000 1st place check and added the Castaway Customs MWSC Big Fish award of $500 to boost their total earning to $6,500. They also received two pairs of Purpose Built Optics as a bonus for winning 1st place!
Dahlstrom, Ryan, and Emery had a good idea of how they would fish before arriving at the tournament. They had just won a tournament a week prior on Pool 13 on the Mississippi River and immediately following it they began preparing for Pool 19.
Ryan took some mooneye home and vacuumed seal them to be ready for use at Burlington.
“We heard that getting bait was not going to be easy,” confirmed Ryan. “So Monday night after work I went out looking for fresh bait. After about 10 throws, I had 7 to 10 fresh mooneye and thought maybe the bait wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.”
Feeling better about the bait situation it was time to do some scouting and prefishing. In a short time, five fish ranging from 5 to 13 pounds were in the boat. So the fishing stopped and the focus turned to scanning and looking for fish. A couple of spots were identified and marked.
“I caught some fish but they were not the quality we were looking for,” recalled Ryan. “So I moved and started catching quality fish again, 5 to 10 pounders. At one point three 10-pound fish were lying in the bottom of the boat.”
With some good fish found, Ryan called it a night and phoned his fishing partners to let them know that they were set.
“I hadn’t caught fish like this in a long time,” said Ryan. “I felt pretty confident in the two spots and that we could put close to a 50-pound bag in the boat on tournament day.”
Dahlstrom and Emery joined Ryan on Thursday night. They stayed out until almost 11 o’clock and caught only 10 mooneyes. Ryan went to work on Friday and his partners went looking for bait. They checked with other anglers and found they were having trouble getting bait too. Frightened by the prospect of no bait, they drove back to Fulton to get frozen mooneye that they had frozen a month before.
“We finally heard from our good friend, Mike Keuhl,” explained Ryan. “He was going back out that night to get fresh bait. If he did he planned to give us bait that he caught earlier in the week. Thank God he did. It helped us relax a lot.”
Friday night included a captain’s meeting and about 3 hours of sleep before launching at the riverfront and running downriver to their first spot.
“We were dragging Parks Planers for about five minutes when the first fish smashed Tyson’s B’n’M rod,” reported Ryan. “After that, it was pretty much nonstop all day. At one point we had two 8-pounders that we were looking to cull. Our other three fish were all over 10 pounds.”
“We were dragging 4 lines behind the boat,” added Emery. “We also had two 10-foot dead stick rods out the side of the boat. We tried 10-15 foot water but never caught anything over 6 to 7 pounds. When we went deeper, 15 feet plus, that’s where all our big fish came from. That is our go-to setup when the current in the Mississippi gets too low to bump. We always try anything to move the baits.”
They continued to drag Parks Planer Boards behind their B’n’M rods and caught another 12-pound fish. They went a little bit farther and caught another 10-pound fish. They were confident of a good bag when a storm rolled in.
“When the storm hit we didn’t change plans,” noted Emery. “We threw out a drift sock to slow us down and we kept fishing right through it!”
“Once the storm was gone the wind died down,” clarified Ryan. “We decided to do one more drag through this area. Tyson looked at us and said. ‘I think this is going to be the one that’s going to put us over the top.’”
Emery’s prediction came true. Ten minutes into the drag his rod doubled over. He kept saying, “I don’t think it’s big enough to replace what we have in the Livewell.”
“Once he pulled the fish up, I netted it and I started freaking out,” exclaimed Ryan. “Once Tyson saw the fish we all realized that he had just caught a good one. It was almost 14 pounds and we knew we had the largest bag of channel cats we had ever weighed.”
The high-fives were flying and the team was celebrating as time was running out. They decided it was time to pack up and head for the scales.
“We waited in line for over two hours to weigh our fish,” remembered Ryan. “Once we did, the nerves really started to kick in. We knew we had a bag good enough for a second but the question was — did someone have a big flathead that we did not know about?”
When the scales closed their weight had held up and their 5-channel cats were enough to pull off the win.
“We probably caught 35-40 fish,” Emery recalled. “Everyone in the weigh-in line said they caught at least 15 fish but a lot of boats said 20 to 30 fish. That pool is awesome.”
“We have a lot of people to thank,” concluded Ryan. “From our wives to a friend, Dustin Cowan, who helped me go out prefishing Monday and Tuesday. A special thanks to Mike and Kassi Kuehl for the bait and everyone who let us know about bait spots so we didn’t have to waste time. You know who you are and we thank you.”
“To say we had a day is an understatement,” stated Dahlstrom in a Facebook post. “This is the last tournament of the year for us and we came out on top. Thank you to our sponsors B’n’M Fishing, Drake Performance Fishing, Dixon Prop, B&R Auto Repair, Deepshaft Outdoors, and Pass Thru Pursuit. We can’t wait for 2025.”
Second Place 
The runner-up spot at Burlington went to Aaron Jarrell, Timmy Otto, and Tripp Sutcliffe. They put together a plan that helped them bring 51.65 pounds to the scales. Just 8 pounds behind the leaders, they earned the second-place check for $3,000
Third Place 
Third place went to Mike and Kassi Kuehl from Illinois. They were less than a pound behind the 2nd place team with a total weight of 50.70 pounds. They earned the third-place check for $2,000.
“What an amazing day of fishing,” Kassi said in a Facebook post. “We bumped pretty much all day, except for when the wind picked up. I caught so many fish today, just knew it was going to be a great day.”
Fourth Place 
Ruger McNeil, Justin Schoonover, and Kevin Rechkemmer nailed down their place with a total weight of 48.89 pounds to earn the fourth-place check of $1,050.
Fifth Place 
The 5th spot went to Nathan Moore, Steve Moore, and Luke Frericks. They teamed up to bring a total weight of 47.96 pounds to the scales and earn the fifth-place check of $950.
Note: To view more Tom Stolze photos and more winners from the event visit the Twisted Cat Outdoors Facebook page.
Final Thoughts
The Burlington Riverfront was an excellent venue for the TCO event. The tournament was scheduled during the city’s Heritage Day event. Heritage Days included a Bridge race across the Great River Bridge, a dog beauty pageant, food and drink vendors, and live music on Friday and Saturday. All festival events were free and open to all ages.
“We had an incredible turnout for the Twisted Cat Outdoors Catfish Tournament in Burlington, Iowa,” noted Tournament Director Alex Nagy. “Fifty boats from all over the Midwest joined us for an unforgettable day on Pool 19 of the Mississippi River.”
“Despite some rough weather midday, the skies cleared just in time for the weigh-in,” continued Nagy. “The river did not disappoint! An impressive 45 boats weighed fish, with many landing channel catfish over 10 pounds. The big fish of the day weighed in at 13 pounds, 92 ounces, with several others close behind in the 13-pound range.”
It’s been nearly five years since TCO visited Burlington. With a payout of over $15,500 and more than 100% payback, this event was a huge success. Plans are already being made to return in 2025.
The next TCO event will be held in New Madrid, MO, on October 5th, 2024 and a 2025 schedule is planned to be released soon.
For more information on Twisted Cat Outdoors visit their website or follow them on Facebook. You can also tune in to TCO on Monday nights for a live show at 7:00 pm on Facebook and YouTube. Nagy discusses tournament action and features Twisted Cat Outdoors anglers and industry leaders.
