Went to the Scheels Battle of the Border on the Red River in Grand Forks last weekend. My first visit to the Red River. First fish I caught was a 14-9 channel cat. Good start. But the dreaded spawn was full on. Pre fished for two days, only caught a bunch of 19-24 inchers and a few 10 pounders. All of the 10 pounders were spewing eggs when we handled them so we were quick to release them in the spot we caught them…hopefully they could finish what they were doing when we interrupted them.
The 2-day tournament started Saturday. There is a dam in Grand Forks and that was the boundary. Day 1 was North of the dam. We went in being not very confident as a result of our pre fishing but ended up in 5th place out of 37 teams with 33.6 pounds. Limit was three fish with only two being over 24″…and no culling. So when you decided to keep a fish, you could not return it. I guess we made the right decisions. The hard part this day was the sub 24 incher. We fished for about 2 hours to catch a 21 incher.
Day two was South of the dam. We were confident on this section from our pre fishing though. When the clock struck 7 AM, we cast our lines out and by 7:05, we had two fish in the live well…as fat little 22 incher (no messing around looking for a ‘short’ this time) and a 13+ pounder. We moved around to spots we marked while pre fishing for the next 3 hours and finally (after 6 10-11 pounders) caught a 17+ to put in the live well. By 11:30, we were heading back to the dock to weigh in. After we weighed our fish, they said we were in second place (with 1/3 of the field weighed in). We had 34.8 pounds…only 1.2 pounds more than day 1. We were very consistent. With an 8 hour drive ahead of us, we got permission to leave.
We were in Sioux City by the time we heard that our weight stood up and we had won second place. My partner and I were absolutely amazed. We were beside ourselves. We couldn’t believe that we did that good. A couple of Red River virgins captured second place in a tournament over run with locals. I think that was pretty dang good. Paid $1110 too. That covered our weekend plus a tiny bit in the pocket.
Thanks to Brad Durick and Scheels for running a great tournament. I had a great time all four days I was there. If you’re into cat fishing, you need to put the Red River on your Bucket List. If you go NOT during the spawn, you will be very satisfied with your trip. BTW, Brad is a great guide too. Although we didn’t use him, he did give us, as well as others, some good advice.
L8R…Ken
