 Catfishing Report
Decided to get out and enjoy some of this nice weather we've been having . So I headed to my favorite "Honey Hole" to do some catfishing. I left the house around 6:30am, stopped by Hardee's for the "lucky" chicken biscuit breakfast and proceeded to the water. As I was putting my boat in the water I met 2 fellows that were leaving. They reported staying out all night and only catching 2 small cats on cut bait. Needless to say I wasn't too discouraged because I know they are in there. I turned the depth finder on and started looking for the deepest holes I could find. I ran over a hole that was around 27 feet deep and full of fish so I started throwing noodles out in a methodical pattern. Thats fancy talk for as fast as I could bait them. I decided to use chicken livers on most and stank-bait on a couple to see what was working. After the noodles were in place, I dropped a line using my rod and reel to increase my chances of getting the big one. The weather was absolutely perfect with a slight breeze. After about an hour of nothing happening at all, I decided to check my bait. I had 15 noodles out and 13 of them were picked clean. Since you can't catch fish on credit, I baited them back up and methodically threw them back out. After 30 more minutes of nothing, I spotted a bald eagle landing in a tree and started watching him instead. About that time one of my noodles stood straight up and shook violently. I did a double take to make sure I wasn't hallucinating but the noodle stopped moving. I figured the bait had just been sucked off the hook so I headed towards it so I could re-bait. As I made my way over to the noodle, it suddenly started swimming in the opposite direction and then disappeared under the water. Whoohoo! It's on now! As I anxiously waited for the noodle to surface I couldn't help but dream of how big it must be. Every minute that went by seemed like 5. After what seemed like 10 minutes (really about 5) the noodle surfaced about 100 yards away from where it disappeared. I started up my gas motor and sped towards it. I got pretty close to it and cut the motor so I could "sneek" up on it. Using my trolling motor I got close enough to the noodle that I could grab it with my hands and started bringing him up. I hoped he would be tired and not fight too hard because if a big fish wants to get away, he's pretty much going to get away. Lucky for me he was tired and I was able to get him up. My net wasn't quite big enough to land him so I used my Rapala grabber tool and put him in the boat. Have to say this is my personal best so far, but I'm still new to catfishing. This fish was 35lbs so now I can raise my goal to a 50lber. Like I said, I know they're in there, and it's not if, it's when I'll catch him.
I did CPR this fish so someone else can enjoy him as much as I did. |