Tournament winning 3-fish limit weighed total of 200.15 pounds
The Santee Cooper lakes have long been known as a big catfish destination. But the lakes really showed out this past weekend during the Santee Lakes Catfish Club’s first tournament of 2022 on Jan. 15.
Seventeen teams fished the event, which used a 3-fish limit for the 1-day tournament. Those 17 teams brought more than 1330 pounds of catfish to the scales. And the first place team of Team Catastrophic Failures won the event with a total of 200.15 pounds, including a 106+ pound blue catfish.
Angler Vern Reynolds caught the 106+ pounder while the team was drifting on the lower lake. They had caught numerous fish up to that point, including a 40+ and a 52 pounder.
At the weigh-in site, the big fish literally destroyed the extra-large plastic tub used to hold fish before placing them into the stainless steel bin to be officially weighed.
Fishing with Mike Durham, a regular on the Santee Lakes Catfish Club trail, Reynolds was filling in for Brad McCall who wasn’t able to fish that day. Coincidentally, McCall fished last year’s Santee Lakes Catfish Club event in February when he became a member of the 100+ pound club, boating a 103-pound blue catfish while fishing with Durham and winning that tourney.
Seven teams weighed more than 100 pounds in Saturday’s tournament
And last Saturday, Team Catastrophic Failures wasn’t the only team to break triple digits at weigh-in. Six other teams weighed a total of 100+ pounds.
Les and Angela Pence took 2nd place with 152.67 pounds, followed by David Kingsmore and Andy Spoon’s 3rd place finish of 137.86 pounds.
As always, all catfish brought to the scales at this event were released alive.
A little more than 2 weeks from now, the Southeastern Catfish Club will be at Santee, fishing their Feb. 5 tournament out of Blacks Camp. This tournament should see plenty of other big fish brought in.
And March 18 and 19 will bring many more anglers together at Blacks Camp for the Santee Big Cat Brawl.
It will be interesting to see if (or how many) other 100+ pounders make it to the scale in these future events.
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Click here to see Paisley June Wolfe and her dad Jason Wolfe’s winning stringer from the December Blacks Camp Big Cat Shootout.
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