EAST GRAND FORKS — When Gary and Bonnie Mounce took the stage last Saturday evening, July 29, to accept their check and trophy as winners of the 2023 Cats Incredible Catfish Tournament on the Red River in East Grand Forks, a cheer erupted, and the crowd on hand gave them a standing ovation.

“I had to wait a couple of minutes before I could start talking to get on the microphone,” said Paul Hansen, tournament director and emcee for the awards ceremony. “I think everybody was excited for them.”

As Cats Incredible ceremonies go, Hansen says he’s never seen – or heard – anything like it.

Not even close.

“Never,” he said. “It’s been a clap for a couple of seconds, a little bit of hooting and hollering from the friends (of the winners) or whatever, but in this case, it was the whole crowd. Everybody stood up and cheered them on. It was a spine-chilling moment up there. Everybody that was up on the stage said the same thing. It was pretty cool.”

Now in their 80s, the Mounces, of Nebraska City, Nebraska, won the 2023 Cats Incredible tourney with a two-day weight of 74.39 pounds – a mere tenth of a pound more than local anglers Jamie Gudajtes and Dustin Lunski, who finished second with 74.29 pounds.

Teams could weigh in five catfish daily, of which only two could be longer than 24 inches.

“It’s been one big high, I’ll tell you,” Bonnie Mounce said Tuesday morning, Aug. 1, three days after winning the tournament. “So many people have called and wished us congratulations and everything. It’s just Cloud 9 – it was so much fun.

“It will be awhile before we come down off that cloud.”

The reception the Mounces received for winning the tournament came as no surprise to Cats Incredible organizers and longtime participants. The couple has made the drive up Interstate 29 to fish every Cats Incredible tournament except the very first one in 1988, and the only reason they didn’t fish that one is because they didn’t know about it, Bonnie says.

The East Grand Forks firefighters union – International Association of Fire Fighters Local 3423 – has organized Cats Incredible since 2013.

“Everybody looks for them, and the local fishermen, they may not remember Bonnie and Gary’s names, but they know them,” said Ruth Ann Schleif, who ran the weigh scale and served on the Cats Incredible tournament committee for years. “They ask, ‘Where’s that old couple from Nebraska? I can’t remember their names, but where’s that old couple? Are they here?’

“And everybody is happy when they’re here. They are just good, good people. They’ve supported the tournaments, and they have brought an awful lot of people from out of state. They spread the word down in Nebraska. And so not only have they fished the tournament, they’ve been ambassadors for the tournament. They promote it. They talk about it.”

After more than 30 years of fishing Cats Incredible – it was canceled a couple of years because of high water and in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic – this was the Mounces’ first win.

They won despite a couple of mishaps, Bonnie says, including a dead battery and losing an anchor.

“Everybody in that crowd stood up and yelled and screamed and took off their hats and oh, it brought tears to my eyes,” Bonnie said. “It still tugs at my heart to think about it. They had never done that before. We were glad that we finally won.

“It really makes you feel good. I mean – there’s no describing how you feel, really.”

Bonnie has two albums full of photos, newspaper articles and other Cats Incredible memorabilia she’s collected over the years. People involved with the tournament are “great – so great,” she says.

“That is one of the reasons why we keep coming back is because of the people that you meet and get to visit with,” Bonnie said. “We think of the people up there all the time throughout the year – not just during the tournament. And we get Christmas cards from people up there. I don’t know why they like us, but I appreciate it.”

It’s no wonder, then, that the Mounces have endeared themselves to tournament anglers both near and far.

“Everybody loves Bonnie and Gary,” said Schleif, who now lives in Warsaw, Missouri, and made the 11½-hour drive to East Grand Forks to see the Mounces and other Cats Incredible regulars who’ve become dear friends over the years.

Being there to watch Bonnie and Gary win their first Cats Incredible was something she’ll never forget, said Schleif, who admits she “jumped up and down and screamed” upon hearing the news.

“They are our kind of unofficial first couple of Cats Incredible because they’ve missed only one,” Schleif said. “They are good fishermen, they are kind souls, and they have a way of making friends wherever you go. Even if they get more fish than you, you can’t begrudge them that because they’re such beautiful people that nobody minds losing to Bonnie and Gary.”

For proof, look no further than Jamie Gudajtes, a fisherman on the second-place team that finished a mere tenth of a pound behind the Mounces.

Gudajtes shared a story about an encounter he had with Bonnie that Saturday morning near the boat ramp as Gary parked the truck, and tournament anglers prepared to head out for their second and final day of fishing.

“Her hands were full, and all that was sitting there was two rods,” Gudajtes recalls. “And I said, ‘Hey, do you want me to grab these rods and carry them to your boat?’ And she’s like, ‘that would be great.’

“So I grabbed the rods, followed her down to the dock, we get to her boat, she puts her stuff down, and I said, ‘Well, now I suppose I rubbed all my good luck off on your two rods.’ I said good luck and go catch the big one. And Bonnie’s like, ‘Well, good luck to you. I hope you catch the big one, as well – but I hope mine’s just a little bit bigger than yours.’ ”

The Mounces landed their big fish of the tournament later that morning with a catfish that tipped the scales at 18.71 pounds; Gudajtes and his partner landed a 17.79-pound catfish Saturday afternoon for their biggest of the tournament.

“He came to me later and we laughed about that,” Bonnie said. “That was a great story, too, I thought – the guys that came in second.”

When Gudajtes and Lunski drained their livewell at the end of the day, Gudajtes recalls, they found two chunks of cut goldeye that had been regurgitated by catfish they’d caught.

That could have been the difference.

“I said, if I could pick anyone on the board who I’d lose to, it would be them,” Gudajtes said.

The response to the Mounces’ win, he says, was unlike anything he’d experienced in more than 20 years of fishing catfish tournaments.

“I’ve never seen such a crowd get into it and hooting and hollering as much as they did for them,” Gudajtes said. “It kind of made me feel good. … Just to get kind of that atmosphere and drive back into people. The parking lot was packed, there were people everywhere, and it was so good to see.”

Before this year’s tournament, Bonnie said this would be their last Cats Incredible. At 83½ years old, she says it’s getting harder to pull that anchor. Cats Incredible rules now allow a third person in the boat, and Christine Bradley of Lakeland, Florida – Gary’s son’s fiancee – was with them in the boat this year to help with some of the lifting.

One thing’s for sure: If winning Cats Incredible brings them back for one more year, they’ll have a lot of happy friends.

“Gary was already talking about it on the way home from up there,” Bonnie said. “I said, ‘No, Gary, I don’t think we’ll be able to handle it next year.’

“We’ll see.”