I headed out of LB again Saturday looking for an outsized channel cat or two. Water was under 68° when I started fishing at 7:45 and rose to about 73° by the time I quit at 3:45. I dragged wb on a flig and a Santee rig. The first flig I used was so beat up that it was loose on the hook and was split out about 3/4 of it's length. The fish still loved it. Eventually I just had to retire it and the new replacement worked just as well. It seemed that the Santee caught nearly as many but it worked better after I moved the float further up the line, maybe a foot instead of 6".
I caught 19 channels, one bullhead and one wb. I was averaging one channel every half hour but that time reduced to 25 minutes after a flurry in the afternoon. I caught cats of 27.5", 28" and 28.5. Nice fish but I need at least a 30 to get a bump in the contest, 31 to add points to our team score. I would have welcomed any of those early in the season and they would have earned 84 points in the contest. The big ones are certainly showing up more now. The 28 was very light gray. When I got it close to the boat I noticed that my braided line looked a little frazzled about six feet up. I lightened the drag even more and landed him ok even though he still fought pretty hard. When I inspected the 20-pound line I saw that it was holding together with just two threads. Of course I cut off several feet of line and re-tied. Note to self: check your line more often.
I strolled all the way down to the Mulberry area. I tried to stay closer in than I usually fish but I did get hung up a couple of times when I got closer than 400 yards out.
I caught 19 channels, one bullhead and one wb. I was averaging one channel every half hour but that time reduced to 25 minutes after a flurry in the afternoon. I caught cats of 27.5", 28" and 28.5. Nice fish but I need at least a 30 to get a bump in the contest, 31 to add points to our team score. I would have welcomed any of those early in the season and they would have earned 84 points in the contest. The big ones are certainly showing up more now. The 28 was very light gray. When I got it close to the boat I noticed that my braided line looked a little frazzled about six feet up. I lightened the drag even more and landed him ok even though he still fought pretty hard. When I inspected the 20-pound line I saw that it was holding together with just two threads. Of course I cut off several feet of line and re-tied. Note to self: check your line more often.
I strolled all the way down to the Mulberry area. I tried to stay closer in than I usually fish but I did get hung up a couple of times when I got closer than 400 yards out.
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.