Osfar and Raley Win Ranger Boats World Championship, Again!
Category: article
Oct 28th, 2020 by Keith Worrall
Modified Oct 28th, 2020 at 9:35 AM
Osfar and Raley Win Ranger Boats World Championship, Again!
The exciting finale of the 2020 Professional Musky Tournament Trail was greeted by spectacular fall colors, perfect water temperatures and variable weather conditions. What more could the top 38 teams that qualified for the PMTT Ranger Boats World Championship on Cave Run Lake near Morehead, Kentucky October 23rd, 24th, and 25th ask for while they compete for the 1st Place prize package of a 2021 Ranger Angler 2080M, trail powered by a Mercury Marine Outboard.
Wanna see more photos from the event?
Day one was beautiful with partly cloudy, a slight breeze and temps at eighty degrees. The fishing was also good as there were 19 muskies over thirty inches caught. Ranger Boats World Championship is an elimination tournament, where the teams needed to catch at least one 30 inch or larger musky on Friday or Saturday to be able to compete on Sunday. Friday night a major cold front moved through dropping the air temperature on Saturday by 30 degrees and the water temperature also went down three degrees. The musky bite remained consistent even with the cold front and the competing teams still caught 16 muskies and a total of 20 teams made it to the final day.
On day one, Nate Osfar Marathon City, WI. and Matt Raley of Minoqua, WI were in the lead with four muskies. On day two Osfar and Raley had several muskies hooked but failed to land one. The team of Jarod Donar of Madison, WI and Kevin Nash of Aurora, IL caught muskies two both days to put their total at four muskies and take the lead going into the third and final day.
Day three had the two teams going back and forth with Osfar and Raley catching two muskies in the first hour to take the early lead. Donar and Nash then caught the big fish of the day at 46.50” to take the lead into the final hour. Osfar and Raley then caught two more muskies, bringing their total to eight muskies up to 38.25”. They were casting small black Medussa baits near weed walls and working them like a jerkbait. Most of their strikes came in the first five pulls of the bait because it seemed like the muskies were holding really close to the weeds. They said that the best spot to catch a musky is the spot that you caught your last one and they did it enough to capture the championship win again, in back to back years and take home the new 2021 Ranger Angler 2080M, trailer and Mercury Outboard.
In a close second place with five muskies up to 46.50” was Donar and Nash. Donar used black Medussa rubber baits and Nash used shad colored minnow baits. They covered a lot of different areas that had shallow weeds making sure to tick the weeds with their baits to trigger fish. In third place was Bill Burns of Morehead, Kentucky and David Lee of Cincinnati, Ohio that caught three muskies up 43 inches. Burns and Lee fished ten-foot weed lines and beach areas with slow retrieved topwater baits and Burns spinnerbaits. In fourth place was Tony Grant and Gregg Thomas both locals from the area. Grant and Thomas caught four muskies up to 37.25” and used a mix of baits that included Musky Innovations realfish, fat bastard topwater and a bondy bait. Rounding out the top five was Chris Riebe of South Elgin,Illinois and Matt Snyder of Tower, Minnesota. Riebe and Snyder caught three muskies up to 36.5”. The two anglers used twitch baits as slow as they could near deeper weed edges.
Top 3 2020 PMTT Top Gun Teams of The Year
The prestigious top gun award was determined early on in the championship event this year. Rick and Sarah Hoover of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania caught a nice musky on day one to seal the deal and become the Top Gun Team of the Year, being the top point team throughout the year and the husband and wife did exactly that by catching a musky at every event in 2020. Finishing in second place in the Top Gun standings this year was Tony Grant and Gregg Thomas of Morehead, Kentucky. In third place in the Top Gun standings for 2020 was Kevin Nash of Aurora, Illinois and Jarod Donar of Madison, Wisconsin.
Tournament Director Tim Widlacki thanked all the PMTT`s fantastic sponsors, especially Ranger Boats for sponsoring the tournament and the entire trail. Also, Morehead Tourism for hosting the event and thegreat hospitality they and the entire town have given us every year. Also, Mercury Marine, Musky HunterMagazine, Okoboji Tourism, Keyes Outdoors, Motorguide, Chaos Tackle, Treelands Resort,Vitaminerals, Feldstrein Jeweler’s, Eagle River Area Chamber of Commerce, Lake Chippewa Flowage Resort Association and all the associate and contributing sponsors. Please let these fine people know that
you appreciate their promotional efforts in support of freshwater’s most challenging fish and thoseextreme anglers who chase her on the first, best and only truly national Professional Musky TournamentTrail circuit, the PMTT.
If any of you would like to join the PMTT in 2021 or would just like to follow us, please check out our website at promusky.com or follow us on social media. Again, thank you everyone for following usthrough this rough year with the pandemic and all else in the world this year. We all here at the PMTTwish you good health and look forward to hitting the water again in 2021.
Final Results – 44 Fish caught and released
Day 1 Results – 19 Muskies registered
Day 2 Results – 16 Muskies registered
Day 3 Results – 9 Muskies registered
TTAP Team (Trail Advantage Program) Bonus Team – Matt Raley & Nate Osfar
TTAP (Trail Advantage Program) Bonus Fish – Kevin Nash & Jarod Donar