MSrivercatfish.com

My friend Demetrius came back out this last Saturday to fish with me again.  You will recall a month ago, Demetrius caught a nice blue catfish just under 70 lbs.  He came back over with the hopes of catching about a 70 lb Flathead.

It was not to be.  He did, however, get to net my new personal best.  He brought along some nice fresh skipjack and we pulled out all the stops in putting some great bait out there.

The river had just started a hard rise.  It went up 3 feet over night and another 3 feet while we were out fishing.  Fortunately the trash in the water had not become bad yet.  We set up on some structure armed with big skipjack heads and filleted sides.  The wind was blowing hard and the river was white capping.  I thought I was going to freeze.

My outside pole with the skipjack fillet bobbed and went down hard.  I quickly grabbed the pole and I knew it was a good one.  He took out some line but not too much.  He moved around but stayed down.  Then he started coming toward the boat.  He moved down directly under the boat and just stayed there.  He would move back and forth some while taking out a little line but mostly he just stayed down.  Slowly I started to gain some on him, as I put the most pressure on him that I dared.  Finally he came close to surfacing beside the boat and we saw the swirl of his tail.  It was a long way from my main line!!  Wow, this was a good one.  He came up and Demetrius put the net under him.  What a beauty!!  My new personal best.  Just shy of 70 lbs.

We snapped some pics and released the beast to be caught by us again hopefully next year!  Unfortunately the days events were not anywhere near as exciting as our morning adventure.  I soon caught another blue after this about 12-13 lbs.  We fished behind a dike later on and Demetrius had one on that we estimated was in the 20lb class.  He got off just right before we could see him.  We saw the swirl, as he swam back down.  The day ended with Demetrius catching a flathead cat weighing 4 or 5 lbs out of 70 feet of water.  I don’t know why but this 70 foot hole has produced a number of smaller flatheads over the last few trips.

A cold, miserable, windy day but the fishing wasn’t too bad at all.  It’s those really pleasant days (weather-wise) that you have to look out for!

Shane

My new personal best Blue catfish. Just under 70 lbs.