12-11-2019, 10:00 AM
I took a few days off from work for the kids fall break. I decided to take advantage of a weekday morning and hit the water about 8 with my grandpa. It's been a couple months since he has felt like going due to back problems so I was quite excited to be on the water again with him. I knew the current was slow so we went right up to the dam and started off. I started out with a 3" swimbait and within the first 30 minutes I boated a nice 2 3/4lb smallie. Milled around for a bit and wound up getting the bite of a lifetime. Felt a thump and set the hook. This fish never turned after setting the hook and only moved about 15 yards before anchoring in. I knew this wasn't a bass and was pretty sure it was a catfish. I fought this fish hard on a medium action rod with 12 lb flouro. I'm pretty sure my drag is messed up on the reel from the runs. After about 30 minutes or so this fish finally decided to come off the bottom. It came up enough for me to see it and I was in quite a state of shock. I knew this was a different class of catfish than I had seen in person before. I yelled at a boater close by to see if he had a bigger net. No dice but he did loan me his fish clamp pliers. I tried flagging Richard simms down but he was a little far away to see me. After a few more runs and managing to navigate the bridge pylons safely with the fish I knew there was a chance to boat the fish. I managed to get the fish to the surface and land it. To my shock I could have put my shoe in its mouth. I barely was able to lift the fish and my scale only goes 55lbs. It pegged the scale with the tail still in the water. I managed to hoist the fish in the boat for a picture but I just couldn't pick the fish up safely for a picture. So I slid him back in the water and got as good of a picture as I could. I estimated the length at 45" long. In hindsight I should have checked it properly but I was exhausted and my 81 yr old grandpa is in no shape to be wrestling a fish that size. What a blessing it was to land such a fish. We finished out the day with several other small mouth and just an all around good day on the water. So happy cooler temps are finally here.