Slow night saturday

Took the girlfriend out saturday and fished a few spots. Ended up with a little flat(5lbs), nice channel(28″) and the biggest mud turtle I have ever seen. We had a few runs but they were mouthing the bait pretty good. Came back twice with just a sucker head. Figured the channels were responsible for that.

All and all it was a great night but fishing was a little slow. Comedy hour came quick when I caught the turtle. It had to weigh at leats 15 lbs and at first look it looked like a flats head when it came out of the water. I didnt have a light on it and thought to myself hmm… This is a pretty big flat for how doggy it fought. So I reach down and go to grab hold and find the hook and a head pops out at me After I finally grabbed the light I was happy about 2 things. 1 it was not a snapper and 2 I didnt have to worry about finding a clean pair of shorts( but I was close)….. I should have taken a picture but I figured he had been through enough and just clipped the hood and never pulled him out of the water.
His shell had to have been 20 plus inches from front to back. I have never seen a mud turtle that big. Learned a new lesson…Always hit the line with a light b4 you go sticking you hands down there

It was slow for us saturday too.. we had about 6 good runs on the live bait.. but hooked up on nothing. Sherry caught 1 nice channel that tipped the scale to be about 10.5 pounds on cutbait.. other than that.. nothing until sunrise and then the nibblers came out for the cut, and 1 more run on a big live sucker this time.. IT dropped it.. reeled my bait in an hour later in had some nasty teeth marks everywhere but where the hook was.. wrong kind of catfish.

Them channels are working there way down on my list. They have done there damage on my bait this year.They are fun to catch but when you get down to a couple lively minnow they can be a pain in the

Anyone know much about these turtles??? I thought they were called a hognose mud turtles???? but Im sure I am wrong here. It had a long pointed nose and a flat shell soft on the bottom. Cant help much on color but the smaller ones are more of a yellowish brown with now special pattern.

BM,

They are softshell turtles, and this time of year they can really start to be a pain in the arse when using cutbait. The problems you are having with suckers/chubs or any kind of soft finned baitfish, is another good reason to use bullheads if you are interested in specifically targeting Flatheads. I occasinally catch big 10+ lb channels on bullheads…but that’s about it, save for the occasinal 30″ walleye later in the year. It’s not always channels that kill those suckers, gar love them too…and most rivers have gar, they will shred em up, sometimes beheading them…usually real fast channel like runs, if you’re using a clicker. My dad caught a couple in the mid 50″ range on cutbait a couple years ago, actually pretty cool looking IMO.

Jason.

I’ve been getting gar lately on the cutbait – it adds a little excitement to the night, but they run all over and get in the other lines pretty quickly. I’m surprised at how many I’ve actually hooked lately, they’re usually not easy to hook. Here’s one:

I’ve also been having a slow time, but got a lot of hits last night. Some were surely flatheads, and we caught two 5 pound flats. The others dropped the bait. It’s a good sign (from a bad situation) when lose a fish and the bluegill comes back completely unscathed – must have been a good sized mouth it was in.

The gar haven’t hit the bluegills that I’m aware of, but another pesky fish did:

This one was 11 pounds, 29 inches. Nice channel, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Wingdams are full of fish right now, and it was a wingdam last night where we did our thing. This one has a variety of looks from the shore to the channel and we set up where the deep hole on the channel end started. The two flats came from about 25 feet of water.

That is sound advice to check the line with a light before reaching for the “fish”.

I have a similar story that I tell people. To make it short, never try and retrieve a hooked fish when it tangles itself in a bush. I thought I had a nice fish on and it wrapped itself in a flooded bush on the bank of the Rum River. Eager to see the size of this fish I waded down the shore to the bush. Since the water was muddy I tried following my line down to the fish’s mouth by feeling the line. I ended up trying to grab underneath what felt like the gill plate of a carp. I tried desperately, but couldn’t find the edge of the gill flap. Then I felt an under water concussion, similar to a “snapping” under the water. It took me a second or 2 to realize I was trying to pull up a snapper. Needless to say as the realization popped into my head, the pole went flying and I scampered out of the water screeching like a little girl (I apologize in advance to all the little girls out there for my comparison).

Did I say I was going to make short?

Two NICE fish there Matt!

I haven’t “hooked” a gar that size before, but I know the smaller ones (about a 1/3 that size) fight good!

Looks like you could make a belt or a hat band out of that thing!

I think you and Whiskerkev are right on…wing dams – rocks!

Matt and I had very similar nights. Only I was on Mendota. My gar was lost at boatside. Thank god. We have been killing big channels lately. It is kind of like fishing for bluegills though. Not bad if you can’t get to serious cat water though. I downsize my gear and give’em a chance. oh and Brian, I haven’t fished a wingdam for a flathead catfish in over 5 years.