Fishing report: New personal best!

 

As you can see I had a pretty good day fishing today. I caught my personal best channel catfish! 12.4 lbs. I had been trying to get a big cat all summer and though I did catch a six pounder earlier in the year, I finally caught an actual big cat on my catfish rod. 

I was actually getting ready to leave as the sunset was ending and the mosquitos were starting to swarm. I then got a bit of a nibble on my big rod and I let him play with it a bit. When the line started moving I set the hook and I started reeling him in! The fish was very strong and it even managed to pull drag on me. I got it in with the help of a few other fellow fishermen who helped me net the fish and we landed it! I unhooked it, took a couple of pictures and then released him. 

How did I catch it? Just a store bought shrimp. I put it on a circle hook with a Carolina rig and fished it on the bottom. I haven't had too much luck with that this year but I had a couple of bites before. This was my first catfish on something other than a nightcrawler or jig this year though. 

That wasn't the only fish I caught today though. I had a couple other smaller catfish, and of course, round gobies. I did have a couple of nice fish on my ultra-lite pole though. One appeared to be a largemouth bass that snapped my line right as I was pulling him out of the water, he wasn't big though. I also had a decent smallmouth as well, probably about 15 inches, but as soon as I got him up he jumped and threw the hook. 

All in all it was a great day of fishing, well other than the quart of blood the mosquitos sucked out of me. I am glad that I have decided to go fishing a lot more this year. I've not only caught three new species (well four if you count the gobies), I've gotten new personal bests for channel catfish and freshwater drum (sheepshead). And the year is not over yet! During the week of Labor Day I will be on vacation and assuming the weather is good, I will be fishing the whole time! I don't think I will beat my new personal best anytime soon, but you never know!