river kitties

so earlier in the week while fishing one of my typical catfish spots i had an interesting encounter with a large fish. i was using my usual flathead rig a 6' diawa esox edition xheavy rod abu garcia baitcast reel 80lb power pro 2 oz no-roll sinker and 10/0 circle hook, live bullhead for bait. after a few hours of waiting i get a take. the reel buzzed for about 10 second i picked up the rod and set the hook. the fish on the other end pulled back insanely hard. it took off into the faster deeper water then snapped my line. i must have had a weak spot somewhere because that stuff should not break. we only managed one catfish all night and it was caught on a panther martin #2. sort of odd but knowing flatheads typically are more predatory catfish i guess im not too suprised.

i decided i would try again last night with the same rig and also pick up some chubs to use for the other various predators that are found at this spot. this time it did not take more than an hour of waiting before i got into a flathead. i was using my medium light rod and a chub on a float. the rod is far too long for fighting in such strong fish in fast current and i ended up snapping the rod in half. luckily its under warranty and as an added bonus i still landed the fish. a decent flathead but still a baby.

as i was releasing the fish i heard the bell on my other rod start ringing. this was my larger setup. it had a wounded 8 inch creek chub on as bait so i knew it was most likely a good fish going after it. i got over to the rod as fast as possible and set the hook. this was a much better fish. even the big rod was having trouble maneuvering the fish away from any structure it could run into. i got it up close passed the rod to john and hopped onto the river bank. we had no net but it didnt matter. the fish would not have fit anyways. john guided it in towards me and i got both hands on its mouth. this was a much nicer flathead at least double the size of the last one.

after that the fishing seemed to die down alot. we had a few hits here and there and john reeled in a turtle but other than that nothing special happened. by this time it was around 2 am and we decided if we dont get any action in the next half hour to call it quits. i switched over to a lighter rod and crawler fished for a while. still not much happened so we started to pack up. at 2:28 i got a hard bite on the crawlers. the fish put up a wonderful battle. after a few minutes passed i had it in close. it was a big channel cat. my first big channel all year.

after releasing it we fished a little longer but nothing happened so around 4am we drove home and got some sleep. not a bad night of fishing and im hoping to get back out to this spot a few more times while the cats are still hungry.