a date with destiny- blue you're my boy! (MUST READ)
space inwaders 03/20/2010 - 16:28 Trip Reports Potomac
Some of you may remember my girlfriend Annie has a date with destiny, landing a big blue catfish.
She's had several on the line, and lost all of the true BIG BLUES.
We headed to Tidal waters friday afternoon. We bought our DC licenses at fletcher's boat house, and gave it a quick hike and a quick try, but couldn't reach any good locations to cast, so we moved to our good luck spot down the road a ways.
We arrived with an outgoing tide, about 2 and a half hours from low tide. We reached our spot and somebody was fishing there. One fisherman, casting close to shore with nightcrawlers taking advantage of the white perch spawning run, they were in the area IN NUMBERS, the other fisherman was pulling one out about every couple minutes. We asked if we could join him, something i normally wouldn't do, but in this area its normal. He couldn't really speak english, but seemed ok with the idea.
We tied up rigs simlar to a drop shot rig, but using a 2 oz no-roll sinker (worked VERY WELL in current) at the bottom and a 5/0 circle hook about 15 inches above the weight, we had 1" x 3" strips of cut store bought white perch. Within 30 mins we had our first blue cat. A smaller one, still a nice fish, about 20-24 inches and FAT. One more followed within a few minutes, but soon something was nibbling ever so gently on Annie's rod. She lifted the rod and tightened up the line and something was on the other end, and it was BIG.
She was into a SERIOUS FISH, struggling a bit, not gaining much line, after a few minutes she's tiring and the fish is winning the battle, when it started heading toward a brush pile near shore, i took over fighting duty. We did not want to loose this one as we've lost too many before.
It was a tough fight on the med hvy shakespeare alpha spinning combo, 12/30 fireline helped us alot here as i had to hold the spool at times in order to hold the fish. This catfish wasn't rolling around like they do sometimes, it was a real fighter.
Eventually i found myself working the fish upstream, parallel to shore, and it was slow progress. When this fish wanted to run, there was no stopping it. If you want to pursue big blue cats, you need some serious tackle. At least an 8 foot med/hvy or 7 foot heavy action rod and no less than 30 pound line.
Luckily the fish didn't want to go very shallow, and i had my chest waders on, after a while it was close, and found this fish would not fit in the net! I had to hand land this one by the mouth. Got lucky again and had the fish in my grasp.
Got her to shore, nasty 10" deep river silt everywhere, measured the length at 43-44 inches, measured the girth at 28 inches! Got the cradle and 100lb scale. The weight? SIXTY point 49 pounds!
WOW, minus the cradle we're probably talking 59 and a half pounds. Its hard to estimate a fish like this by looking at it, they're SO FAT, we didn't expect the scale to read out this high, but we'll take it!
After a few photos, i walked the fish out toward cleaner water, wiped the dirt off her while she was under water, soon she was ready and swam off strongly with a big wake behind.
It was a team effort, and alot of fun, but i'll consider it her fish! Annie met her year's goal on the first trip!
What is also interesting is 3 of 3 big blue cats like this that we've landed bit like a tiny little fish, i guess they're smart, if a person wasn't holding the rod, they may never feel these bites. Although the fish might hook itself, it pays to use a single rod, hold onto it, and dont overlook those little bites. It didnt' require a huge peice of cut fish either, like i used to do, i only miss more fish with a huge peice of bait.
The action slowed a little after this, approaching low tide. A little after low tide it picked back up again. In all we landed about a dozen blue and channel cats in the 20-24 inch range, and the one big blue.
just had to share this moment, some of you know how happy Annie is to finally land one of these monsters, and i had a blast dragging this fish in on tackle that really isn't heavy enough! What is crazy is this size of a blue catfish is not uncommon on the tidal potomac. Of course we've taken many a trip over the last 2 years and only landed 3 of this caliber, we've also lost 4 or 5 that were too big to get in.
-steve
She's had several on the line, and lost all of the true BIG BLUES.
We headed to Tidal waters friday afternoon. We bought our DC licenses at fletcher's boat house, and gave it a quick hike and a quick try, but couldn't reach any good locations to cast, so we moved to our good luck spot down the road a ways.
We arrived with an outgoing tide, about 2 and a half hours from low tide. We reached our spot and somebody was fishing there. One fisherman, casting close to shore with nightcrawlers taking advantage of the white perch spawning run, they were in the area IN NUMBERS, the other fisherman was pulling one out about every couple minutes. We asked if we could join him, something i normally wouldn't do, but in this area its normal. He couldn't really speak english, but seemed ok with the idea.
We tied up rigs simlar to a drop shot rig, but using a 2 oz no-roll sinker (worked VERY WELL in current) at the bottom and a 5/0 circle hook about 15 inches above the weight, we had 1" x 3" strips of cut store bought white perch. Within 30 mins we had our first blue cat. A smaller one, still a nice fish, about 20-24 inches and FAT. One more followed within a few minutes, but soon something was nibbling ever so gently on Annie's rod. She lifted the rod and tightened up the line and something was on the other end, and it was BIG.
She was into a SERIOUS FISH, struggling a bit, not gaining much line, after a few minutes she's tiring and the fish is winning the battle, when it started heading toward a brush pile near shore, i took over fighting duty. We did not want to loose this one as we've lost too many before.
It was a tough fight on the med hvy shakespeare alpha spinning combo, 12/30 fireline helped us alot here as i had to hold the spool at times in order to hold the fish. This catfish wasn't rolling around like they do sometimes, it was a real fighter.
Eventually i found myself working the fish upstream, parallel to shore, and it was slow progress. When this fish wanted to run, there was no stopping it. If you want to pursue big blue cats, you need some serious tackle. At least an 8 foot med/hvy or 7 foot heavy action rod and no less than 30 pound line.
Luckily the fish didn't want to go very shallow, and i had my chest waders on, after a while it was close, and found this fish would not fit in the net! I had to hand land this one by the mouth. Got lucky again and had the fish in my grasp.
Got her to shore, nasty 10" deep river silt everywhere, measured the length at 43-44 inches, measured the girth at 28 inches! Got the cradle and 100lb scale. The weight? SIXTY point 49 pounds!
WOW, minus the cradle we're probably talking 59 and a half pounds. Its hard to estimate a fish like this by looking at it, they're SO FAT, we didn't expect the scale to read out this high, but we'll take it!
After a few photos, i walked the fish out toward cleaner water, wiped the dirt off her while she was under water, soon she was ready and swam off strongly with a big wake behind.
It was a team effort, and alot of fun, but i'll consider it her fish! Annie met her year's goal on the first trip!
What is also interesting is 3 of 3 big blue cats like this that we've landed bit like a tiny little fish, i guess they're smart, if a person wasn't holding the rod, they may never feel these bites. Although the fish might hook itself, it pays to use a single rod, hold onto it, and dont overlook those little bites. It didnt' require a huge peice of cut fish either, like i used to do, i only miss more fish with a huge peice of bait.
The action slowed a little after this, approaching low tide. A little after low tide it picked back up again. In all we landed about a dozen blue and channel cats in the 20-24 inch range, and the one big blue.
just had to share this moment, some of you know how happy Annie is to finally land one of these monsters, and i had a blast dragging this fish in on tackle that really isn't heavy enough! What is crazy is this size of a blue catfish is not uncommon on the tidal potomac. Of course we've taken many a trip over the last 2 years and only landed 3 of this caliber, we've also lost 4 or 5 that were too big to get in.
-steve
