Inaugural Monster Cat Roundup

July 11, 2009 by Montana Cats Staff

Sidney, MT 7/11/09 – The Inaugural Monster Catfish Roundup is officially in the books! The weekend kicked off much like the other MT Cats Tour events, with a Friday night Calcutta held at the Ranger Bar in downtown Sidney. This year’s event was an instant success, as 23 teams set out on the river at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Twenty teams chose to fight it out in boats, while the other three teams battled the elements from shore. Air temperatures peaked in the mid 80’s and water temperatures were approaching mid to upper 70’s, once again putting the anglers at a small disadvantage when trying to catch high numbers of catfish.

The Glasgow area duo of Lars Sorensen and Chad Dawson ran away from the field, posting an impressive stringer of five cats weighing in at 23.9 lbs. Lars reeled in the second biggest cat of the tourney, a 7.7 lb. beauty that helped propel them to victory. The angler’s title didn’t come without some stress however, as they had a 6lb. cat die on them within only a couple hours left until weigh-ins. They would keep their focus and land another fish to take its place and finish comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack. Lars had this to say on the victory, “We targeted some shallow water with deep water right next to it, and it worked out. We were just concerned with getting our limit first, and it just took care of itself.”

It was a close battle for runner-up honors as the father-son duo of Chad and Kyle Mueller, both of Sidney, edged out Brenner and Brady Flaten by three tenths of a pound. Kyle Mueller would win big fish honors, when he landed a 10.3 lb. beast. He put the monster in the boat with a half hour of fishing remaining and it shot them up the leader board and into the runner-up position. The local team of Stacy Fullmer and Eric Bartelson was the only other team to crack the ten pound barrier, placing 4th with 11.1 lbs.

The live weigh-in was very impressive as twenty one teams would weigh in at least 3.8 lbs of fish. All the catfish were immediately released back into the Yellowstone River to live another day. This event was brought to you by the Montana Catfish Association and was directed by Field Staff member Steve Harris. Steve is a Sidney native and has been a Yellowstone River rat nearly his entire life. The Big Cat Roundup was the 4th and final stop on the 2009 Montana Cats Tour. On behalf of the Montana Catfish Association, we would like to thank all 160 teams who competed on tour this year. Expect many positive changes and additions in 2010 as we continue down the road to a very bright future for Montana Cats!

pictures

Pictures for this tournament can be found here.

big fish

complete results

Posted in: Monster Cat Roundup