The 18th year of the Professional Musky Tournament Trail started off the 2016 season at Cave Run Lake in Eastern Kentucky in very exciting fashion on April 23 and 24. With a field of 95 teams registered to compete, the action started early Saturday morning around 8:15 a.m. when longtime PMTT touring pro angler Kevin Nash of Aurora, IL and his partner Ritchie Doyle of Hegin, PA enticed their first of three muskies into hitting his 10 inch Jake crank bait, a heavy 41.50” fish. Kevin replaced the hooks that he had cut on his bait to quickly release the musky and ten minutes later another musky of 37” hit his ten inch Jake crank bait. Nash and Doyle would put one more musky in the boat and the three muskies ended up being enough to net the anglers a first place worth $15,000.00 to go with the two huge 1st place trophies.
Nash & Doyle`s technique was twitching the Jakes in shallow water and around downed timber. The two anglers concentrated on a mudline from the results of some rainfall the afternoon before, the mudline was close to shore.
In Second Place with three muskies measuring 37”, 36” and a 32.25” were Darrel and Lance Seasor of Ashland, KY. The Seasors used Bondy jigging Baits in 10-15 feet of water around schools of crappies. In Third Place were the team of Matt Dixon of State Park, PA and Gordon Dixon of Clarion, PA. They used white Shadzilla Swim Baits and a White and Blue Bulldawg around baitfish schools catching muskies that were 40.75” and 41”.
In fourth place with a 38.50”, 34.50” and a 30.25” muskies were Josh Rabske of Chippewa Falls, WI and Kevin Rabske of Junction City, WI. The two anglers used Shallow Invader Crank baits to catch their muskies. Rounding out the top five with muskies that were 38.50” and 40” were Andrew Matz and Austin Vig of Prior Lake, MN. The two perennial top ten finishers used a dying dog slow twitch rubber bait to persuade their muskies into biting.
Tournament director Tim Widlacki thanked all of the PMTT’s fantastic sponsors especially Vitaminerals for sponsoring the tournament and Morehead Tourism for hosting the event. Also Ranger Boats, Mercury Marine, Musky Hunter Magazine, Eagle River Area Chamber of Commerce, Keyes Outdoors, Chaos Tackle and all of the associate and contributing sponsors. Please let these fine people know that you appreciate their promotional efforts in support of fresh waters most challenging fish and those extreme anglers who chase her on the first, best and only truly national professional musky tournament circuit, the PMTT.
Our next event will be in Eagle River, Wisconsin the Mercury Marine Summer Challenge on June 25th & 26th. We hope that you will continue to follow the results of this exciting musky season. To obtain more information on becoming a member of the PMTT, please call PMTT office @: 815-478-4092.
By: Duane Landmeir, PR Mgr
