Cat fishing tonight

Well we backed off a bit on the plans, no jugs or limb lines, we just
decided to do a little bank fishing, I got to the lake before dark and
caught some 3 inch bream, a bit smaller than I like but I caught a bunch
of them. I threw my net and only caught one 1/2 pound Gizzard shad, no
thread fins within reach.

When my son and grand daughter arrived about 9:00, I had all kinds of
bait,, but no crawfish, I guess I put it where there wasn't any.

I caught about a dozen creek chubs earlier in my trap (big ones, about 5
inches long) so we had live creek chubs, cut gizzard shad, live bream,
wienies, and a tub of fresh liver.

Loaded the big reels with live baits, I thought it might be early for
the big cats, but we were still equipped for them, after an hour or so ,
no bites, so I had a little reel I had been bass fishing with (8 lb
test) a 2500 Daiwa , and decided to but just a small piece of liver on
the StandOut hook it was rigged with, just to see if some small cats
were out there. In about fifteen min. that rod got a hit, I rear back on
it, and the line goes the other way, and goes, and goes, and goes, my
son is freaking out :-)

It ran for over a 100 yds, without letting up (it had to be the rod with
the 8 lb instead of one of the ones with 30 lb line), it slowed a
little, and I told my son I had to put more on the drag, as we were
talking it took off full speed again, he was saying don't add any more
the line is loaded now, I looked at my spool, I could see the spool
under what line was left , I had no choice, I added a little, ever so
gently , the fish slowed then stopped, my son counted 8 wraps of line on
the spool, that was all that was left, and we were at a draw, I couldn't
gain any, the fish couldn't take more, if felt like an eternity, and
finally my rod started coming up, I gained a few turns, then a few
more, gradually the fish was coming to me, I got about half my line
back, then off to the races again. I ended up with 5 good runs out of
the fish, the last two after we had got it close enough to get a good
look at it. About 40 min of heart pounding action. It was the only fish
we stuck a hook into tonight, (we had a number of hits on the cut
shad,, must have been blues, as soon as they felt the rod, they dropped
the bait). The grand daughter got tired and cold, so at 1 PM we called
it a night.

Ok I'll tell you

I landed the fish (thank God for a good BIG net)
see the attached photo
21 1/2 lbs, good fish for the first cat of the year.
It was not blue, but I think it was a blue cat, had a big mouth, that
both fist would go in, but it was not a flat head
--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Nutri Shield insect repellent. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

Another shot
--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Nutri Shield insect repellent. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

"Rodney Long" wrote in message Another shot


Great fish Rodney. By the looks of your face in the second shot, that cat
whupped your butt.

johnval1 wrote:
"Rodney Long" wrote in message Another shot


Great fish Rodney. By the looks of your face in the second shot, that cat
whupped your butt.

Yep,, about half way through, I remembered to place the rod butt against
my belt, this greatly reduced the hand and wrist strain I had when
trying to fight it holding the load with just my hand. I would have been
in trouble if it was a pistol grip rod. My right had had given out after
20 min. I was about to hand the rod over to my son, when I remembered my
salt water fighting technique, of course my son was very disappointed
when I told him I could now handle it :-)

The plan was that any cat that hit the 9 year old grand daughter was to
fight them, when this one took off on the first long run , I asked my
son if we should wake her up, and hand her the rod,, he said NO ! she
wouldn't handle this one on that small 2500 Daiwa Crossfire.

When we salt water fish with her, she has a reel with 500 yds of 8#, we
scale set her drag at 5#, since she weighs so little, we don't want a
fish taking the rod out of her hand, or pulling her in. She has landed a
36# bull red on that rig, two over 30# on that single day when she was
just 6, it took her over an hour on each of them, now she was whipped ,
she begged either one of us to take the rod from her, of course we
wouldn't :-) We couldn't believe she wanted to land another one after
her 2 hour rest from the first

here are her fish that day

8# can land a big fish if you have plenty of it, and no possible snags






--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Nutri Shield insect repellent. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

That color sure looks like a channel cat to me. Very big for a channel,
atleast around here.


"Rodney Long" wrote in message
...
Well we backed off a bit on the plans, no jugs or limb lines, we just
decided to do a little bank fishing, I got to the lake before dark and
caught some 3 inch bream, a bit smaller than I like but I caught a bunch
of them. I threw my net and only caught one 1/2 pound Gizzard shad, no
thread fins within reach.

When my son and grand daughter arrived about 9:00, I had all kinds of
bait,, but no crawfish, I guess I put it where there wasn't any.

I caught about a dozen creek chubs earlier in my trap (big ones, about 5
inches long) so we had live creek chubs, cut gizzard shad, live bream,
wienies, and a tub of fresh liver.

Loaded the big reels with live baits, I thought it might be early for
the big cats, but we were still equipped for them, after an hour or so ,
no bites, so I had a little reel I had been bass fishing with (8 lb
test) a 2500 Daiwa , and decided to but just a small piece of liver on
the StandOut hook it was rigged with, just to see if some small cats
were out there. In about fifteen min. that rod got a hit, I rear back on
it, and the line goes the other way, and goes, and goes, and goes, my
son is freaking out :-)

It ran for over a 100 yds, without letting up (it had to be the rod with
the 8 lb instead of one of the ones with 30 lb line), it slowed a
little, and I told my son I had to put more on the drag, as we were
talking it took off full speed again, he was saying don't add any more
the line is loaded now, I looked at my spool, I could see the spool
under what line was left , I had no choice, I added a little, ever so
gently , the fish slowed then stopped, my son counted 8 wraps of line on
the spool, that was all that was left, and we were at a draw, I couldn't
gain any, the fish couldn't take more, if felt like an eternity, and
finally my rod started coming up, I gained a few turns, then a few
more, gradually the fish was coming to me, I got about half my line
back, then off to the races again. I ended up with 5 good runs out of
the fish, the last two after we had got it close enough to get a good
look at it. About 40 min of heart pounding action. It was the only fish
we stuck a hook into tonight, (we had a number of hits on the cut
shad,, must have been blues, as soon as they felt the rod, they dropped
the bait). The grand daughter got tired and cold, so at 1 PM we called
it a night.

Ok I'll tell you

I landed the fish (thank God for a good BIG net)
see the attached photo
21 1/2 lbs, good fish for the first cat of the year.
It was not blue, but I think it was a blue cat, had a big mouth, that
both fist would go in, but it was not a flat head
--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Nutri Shield insect repellent. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Bob La Londe wrote:
That color sure looks like a channel cat to me. Very big for a channel,
atleast around here.

It was a channel after all, I didn't know channels mouths got so big,
most of the smaller ones have smaller to body size mouths. we counted
the rays on the anal fin from the photo which told it's true species.

It was big for around here as well, it was the biggest channel I have
ever caught or even seen caught by another, yet far from our state
record, I have caught a number of blues and flats bigger than this, but
in all but one case I was gunning for them with the right size gear. Of
course after the fact I'm tickled pink I was using the light reel, and
line (which happened to be mouthed on a new heavy medium action
CastAway, at least the rod was the right size, but it added to the
difficulty of actually landing the fish on light line, I had less of a
shock absorber, than I would normally use on 8#) Of course if I had lost
the fish due to spooling or line breaking, I would not be a happy
camper, but the fish would have weighed much more if we went by how big
it looked in the water, I'm sure that fish lost 10# from the net to the
scale :-)


--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Mojo SpecTastic "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread,
Nutri Shield insect repellent. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, and the EZKnot
http://www.ezknot.com

Rodney

Good tale....would have been neat to be there and watch - yell,
etc....Congrats great fish!


Jim

On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:54:22 -0500, Rodney Long
wrote:

Well we backed off a bit on the plans, no jugs or limb lines, we just
decided to do a little bank fishing, I got to the lake before dark and
caught some 3 inch bream, a bit smaller than I like but I caught a bunch
of them. I threw my net and only caught one 1/2 pound Gizzard shad, no
thread fins within reach.

When my son and grand daughter arrived about 9:00, I had all kinds of
bait,, but no crawfish, I guess I put it where there wasn't any.

I caught about a dozen creek chubs earlier in my trap (big ones, about 5
inches long) so we had live creek chubs, cut gizzard shad, live bream,
wienies, and a tub of fresh liver.

Loaded the big reels with live baits, I thought it might be early for
the big cats, but we were still equipped for them, after an hour or so ,
no bites, so I had a little reel I had been bass fishing with (8 lb
test) a 2500 Daiwa , and decided to but just a small piece of liver on
the StandOut hook it was rigged with, just to see if some small cats
were out there. In about fifteen min. that rod got a hit, I rear back on
it, and the line goes the other way, and goes, and goes, and goes, my
son is freaking out :-)

It ran for over a 100 yds, without letting up (it had to be the rod with
the 8 lb instead of one of the ones with 30 lb line), it slowed a
little, and I told my son I had to put more on the drag, as we were
talking it took off full speed again, he was saying don't add any more
the line is loaded now, I looked at my spool, I could see the spool
under what line was left , I had no choice, I added a little, ever so
gently , the fish slowed then stopped, my son counted 8 wraps of line on
the spool, that was all that was left, and we were at a draw, I couldn't
gain any, the fish couldn't take more, if felt like an eternity, and
finally my rod started coming up, I gained a few turns, then a few
more, gradually the fish was coming to me, I got about half my line
back, then off to the races again. I ended up with 5 good runs out of
the fish, the last two after we had got it close enough to get a good
look at it. About 40 min of heart pounding action. It was the only fish
we stuck a hook into tonight, (we had a number of hits on the cut
shad,, must have been blues, as soon as they felt the rod, they dropped
the bait). The grand daughter got tired and cold, so at 1 PM we called
it a night.

Ok I'll tell you

I landed the fish (thank God for a good BIG net)
see the attached photo
21 1/2 lbs, good fish for the first cat of the year.
It was not blue, but I think it was a blue cat, had a big mouth, that
both fist would go in, but it was not a flat head