Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Anyone here chase Big Catfish?

Nice, peaceful looking pics there, ihookem. When I was a kid, my father and I used to go and camp like that a lot.

That 'gill would make excellent Flathead bait.

My daughter was supposed to go with me last night, but backed out due to being tired. School and work will do that. So I went forth on my own, and it seems the James is coming back to life, at least as far as Catfish are concerned. Ended up boating a 31 lb., a 40 lb., and 48 lb., all Bluecats. I didn't get any pictures of me holding the fish, since I was alone.

It must be nice to be so close to catn river like that. I go 184 mi. to the missy and 70 mi. to the Wisconsin river. Sure got some nice pics of your trips Viv_in_Va.

It will spoil ya. If it weren't for some Oak trees and an old Civil war cemetery, I could see the boat landing. Less than 5 minutes, and I'm on my way.

A couple from last night:

Beautiful view of the river....Lotta guys I know refuse to go out at night, much less by themselves...missing some good fishin':


Flash?, we don't need no stinkin' flash...the red headlight is just fine.



I wish I had some way to give an idea of the size, things just don't scale right in a picture. That hoop for the net is 24" wide, 36" long.

Looks like you guys are having fun.

Geez, I broke a hook and bent another a few weeks ago, bought some 'PROPER' catfish hooks and solved that...

Then this evening, hooked into something big, not sure what, possibly an alligator gar but it was not on long and my line Snapped.

I am going to likely go to braid b/c there are alot of large rocks in the spot I am fishing on the local river.

Any suggestions? Need some that will work on a bass baitcast reel, these are lighter rod/reels I use at times.

I've not used braid, but a lot of guys that I know that do use Power Pro. Just use a mono leader, about 18 or so inches long.

I set my drag at 5 to 5.25 lbs, so when they hit hard, they can run instead of breaking things. They also like to make a run when they see the boat. I've had to reel the big ones in as much as three times!!

Get that big net ready!!

Interesting, I need to lighten my drag, might offset me trying to get to tough too soon on these big ones, thanks for that advice.

I was trolling for walleye, in 40-50 feet of water with 4-5 inch baits, when one of the poles doubled over. It put up a hell of a fight, seemed to run a little more than a walleye should, but stayed down like a walleye does. Needless to say I was confused, It got close to the boat once, and we saw the shape of it, it wasn't a musky ( which was my guess, up to that point.).After about 20 minutes, finally got it in, turns out it had whiskers.

That looks like a nice 'un. They can put up a spirited fight. My experience is that the ones in the 20s do the most headshaking, and may swim hard at the boat, stuff like that. The bigger ones just want to play tractor-pull.

Very nice, should be some good eating too!

When I lived on the Rock River, I fished with an old salt down the road who showed me how he had been catching big cats there and on the Mississippi River. We caught a lot of them, only keeping smaller ones that were good eating.

Fresh water clams off the nearest rock bar, placed in a Ball mason jar, cap and seal screwed down tight. In colder weather, he actually ripened those disgusting things on his furnace. Otherwise, out in the sun until the lid buckled. It was the most disgusting smelling crap I've ever used for fishing, but I also didn't know true non-stop catfishin' until I met Gordy. He used big bamboo or cane polls, circle hooks, and an old Zebco 404 with some kind of 50 lb test salt-water braid. I never saw him lose a fish once he set the hook. He passed last month at age 88.
Jim

Sorry for the loss, looks like he left a legacy

Cats like Clams too eh?

I visit St. Louis a couple of times a year. Is there any fishing for big cats around there? I would love to give them a try.

Ted

Vic, things had been slow till this a.m. Caught a small flathead, landed, and later had a nice sized Flat up to the bank and broke my line right there about 1" up from the hook. Should have had a leader on, the last 2-3ft of line was worn from rocks after he fought.

An hour later, also on a live bream about lost my rod in the river, something Large grabbed it, but I never got a hook set and lost it.

The CHASE continues! Lol. I think this cool weather coming in helped, and it will start getting better now for the fall.

Good deal! The water here is starting to cool a little, so I may switch to daytime fishing soon. This past weekend I noted water temps of 80 to 85�.

I have had some luck in the last couple of weeks, though. A bunch of dinks (10-20 lb'ers), and two nice ones, one 45 and one 52 lb'er. Once the water cools, things should start picking up.

One problem is the James river has the crabs real bad. Hell, they're in the river all the way to Richmond, and it's hard to get a fish's attention when he's gorged on crabs...

Months ago all my 'BIG Fish' hits were in the evenings, today, I got a big hit around 10:30 and later another closer to noon

Catfish w/Crabs, who knew? Lol. Good luck!

65, the way you are talking, I don't know who has who hooked...

Once you get one of those monsters on the end of a line, it can be hard not to think about the next time you can go out and chase 'em.

Sometimes, I think Deer season gets in the way, but I like to do that, too..

Haven't been fishing much lately, but went yesterday. I did "fair", caught a 21, 25, and a 57 pounder. I didn't have anyone with me, so I didn't get a picture of anyone holding a fish, but here's a pic of the 57 lb. blue. His gut was huge when he was lifted up off the deck, and all the fish fought HARD!

WOW man! NICE, the river here is cooling off, no doubt I think the fish bite best during hunting season, perhaps that's why they survive to grow to 57

Awesome catch, live or cut bait? Thanks for sharing.

Using cut Gizzard shad. The local biologist says 100 lbs ought to be doable now.

I don't know if I want to try to lift something like that in the boat.....