Bass pro big cat quest pro#

Meanwhile, at Lake Texoma, only one blue cat over 30 inches is allowed in a total bag limit of 12 fish. Van Vactor says Texas has legislation coming up for a vote on slot limits at several top lakes, including Tawakoni near Dallas, where record-breaking limits continue to be weighed. And we're also lobbying for parallel regulations in Arkansas and on Santee-Cooper in South Carolina, where tighter restrictions have become sorely needed.' Virginia has a similar 32-inch rule for blue cats. 'We worked hard to push through the new rule in Tennessee that restricts harvest of trophy cats to only one fish over 34 inches per day.

Bass pro big cat quest pro#

Ken Freeman, director of the Bass Pro Shops Big Cat Quest reports that tournaments are also shaping statewide management plans. It's a system that works well for all parties, and assures the highest live release rates possible.' If you weigh two fish at noon, they're tallied and go toward your total limit of 5. 'We keep our weigh-in sites open all day, so anglers can weigh big fish at any time, without worries over fish health. 'When event onlookers see giant catfish not only weighed in but also released healthy back into their local waters, it's a huge positive, not only for public relations within the community, but for catch-and-release catfishing as a whole,' says Darrel Van Vactor, president and CEO of Cabela's King Kat USA circuit. As a result, anglers go to great lengths to keep fish healthy with oversized livewells and special aeration systems to assure a lively limit. Any fish brought to a weigh-in site dead or deemed to be dying aren't merely penalized a percentage of their weight - expired catfish are disallowed and erased from a team's total weight. Both the Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops circuits have total catch-and-release rules. If there's a singular hopeful trend emerging from tournaments it's the attitude regarding the release of larger catfish. Whether you follow these increasingly popular events in earnest or disapprove of them completely, you can't discount the discovery of new catfishing techniques, trends, and technology. Given the rising skill of participating anglers, the possibility of a new world record caught during competition remains good. Louis, Missouri, Ryan Casey and Jason Jackson boated a 105-pounder that anchored a 330-pound limit. And at the 2010 River Bend Classic near St. At the 2007 Big Cat Quest Championship on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, 100-plus-pound blues came to the weigh-in on two consecutive days. When timing and a fruitful fishery unite, 100s are more than a possibility. Relative to the competitive pursuit of 5-pound bass, consider a weigh-in where 50- to 100-pound catfish emerge from livewells with regularity. A month earlier on the Mississippi at Crystal City, Missouri, the team eclipsed a 53-pound average, weighing 268 pounds and winning the Bass Pro Shops qualifying event by 118 pounds. Brothers Daryl and Jason Masingale weighed a near 48-pound average, but still finished second.

Ditto for the 2013 Bass Pro Shops Big Cat Quest National Championship on the Mississippi River at Tunica, Mississippi.

At the 2013 Cabela's King Kat USA event on Lake Tawakoni, Texas, it took a 46-pound average to place in the top three, and 239 pounds of blue cats to win. Yet as systems for pinpointing and presenting baits to giant blue catfish continue to evolve, five-fish tournament limits are ballooning to ever-increasing weights.

Photo: Heather MasingaleĬatfish tournament anglers today are wrestling to the surface enormous animals that for years almost no one knew existed. Whether anchored on drifting, Team Masingale keeps their bait moving as often as possible to contact active catfish.