NC-SC team take 1st in King Kat tournament

Posted
There was only a four-pound difference between first and second place at the Cabela's King Kat tournament held over the weekend at the Santee Cooper lakes. Shane Queen of Monroe, North Carolina, and Blake Williams of Fort Lawn, took first in the tournament with 209.88 pounds, earning $4,000 with their win. The team fished the upper lake, Lake Marion, anchoring in 10-20 feet of water using shad for bait. They were the first team in four years to win the tournament using Lake Marion. They targeted their fish in the Jack's Creek area, close to the Interstate 95 bridge. The pair said that the fish were better on Day 1, and that high winds on Day 2 made the fish quit biting. James Saxon of Iva and Richard Wimmer of Princeton, West Virginia, weighed in second at 205.68 pounds, earning $2,000. They fished multiple areas on the Santee Cooper lakes, they said, having to chase the fish on Day 2, noting the fish weren't biting well at all on Saturday. Saxon and Wimmer targeted fish on ledges in 34 feet of water using chunk mullet for bait to land nine fish on Day 1 and 10 on Day 2. The team was hoping that the fish would move up the ledge into shallow water, but they never did. Cecil Menshouse and Jason Withrow, both of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, took third place weighing in at 179.74 pounds and earned $1,000. They fished Lake Moultrie, close to the same location with which they won the 2014 Santee Cooper Super Event. The pair had a better day on Day 2 with eight fish, anchoring and drifting, stating that anchoring worked best for them. Lee Hardee of Dillon and Brandon Tate of Lexington came in fourth, weighing in at 177.88 pounds and earning $500. The team fished Lake Marion on Day 1 and had better fish on that day, but moved south to Lake Moultrie on Day 2. Hardee and Tate targeted all depths of water, ranging from two to 40 feet of water using perch as shad as bait. They anchored on Friday, landing five fish, and switched to drifting on Saturday to catch four fish. Overall, 90 top anglers from nine different states competed for $8,900 in cash and prizes and the opportunity to qualify for the 2017 Cabela's King Kat Northern and Southern Championship. This year's Northern Championship will be held Sept. 22-23, at the Cumberland River in Gallatin, Tennessee. The Southern Championship will be held Oct. 6-7 at Lake Wateree in Camden.