Now I know what you’re going to say! But it’s just the camera angle…and Dennis is a tall guy!
It’s true, 
this 71.5 pound flathead catfish was skillfully hooked yesterday afternoon by my close personal friend Dennis Steele aka fishhead.
Unforunatly, this monster 
will never make the record books as Dennis is a firm believer in Catch-Photo-Release…to be caught again…another day.
(figured I better post this pic before you used it against me Dennis! 
)
On a last minute call, Fishhead was able to make it down to Pool 4 and meet me at Evert’s Resort. I told him not to bring anything but his ice tea and his good looks. He just brought the tea.
While waiting for Dennis, I had a long conversation with Dean the manager of Evert’s. He just recieved two new St Croix catfish rods and wanted to know my opinion. In fact, he wanted me to try them out as these were going to be “demo” models. I was happy to accomadate him.
Dean, you’re going to have to give the specs on these, ’cause I’ve got this short memory…according to pug.
The lighter…but still beefy channel cat rod will work great for both channels AND flats. With the tight tip action, there won’t be any problem detecting a channel bite and pleanty of back bone for moving a flat in relitivly obstruction free waters.
As a die hard flathead guy, the heavier St Croix rod (med heavy 4 to 8oz) won me over as soon as I placed the Garcia 7000 reel on it. I’m not going into the details…just going to leave it at this. When we left around midnight I was to leave the rods in a certain place…I struggled to place it there and not in the back of my truck. That rod and a 50 pounder are what cat dreams are made of!!!
Rumor has it that uncle Dean will be holding an on line Pool 4 catfish tourney in August…with two rods like these for prizes… Dean’s press secratary would neither confirm or deny this. I’ll have to do more snooping around to find out what’s going on and report back.
Back to fishing! While the sun was up, it was very comfortable in the boat. Even after the sun went down a heavy sweatshirt would have kept a person warm.
We boated up stream to our first (and only position) that was towards the dam. We flipped out our bullies and relaxed. Kinda funny when Dennis said he’s fished walleye in the same spot we were fishing for real fish! Heck, I didn’t even know there was walleyes in Pool 4! 
That’s another reason why I like fishing with Dennis, I learn something new every time! 
It wasn’t too long and we had our first run and after giving Dennis some instruction on why he WIFFED… 
we were back yacking about differances between the ‘sippi and the MN rivers.
The most action we had was during daylight hours with only maybe a half doz runs after dark. It really didn’t matter as our arguing about who was going to take the next fish kept getting in the way of our conversations.
One thing that we both found was odd is that we were the only boat in the area. No one was catten in this well know cat area. With Evert’s being 30 minutes from the S St Paul area, boat rentals and the $7 launch fees waive until the end of the summer…I kinda thought there would be some folks that normally shore fished down there…nota soul.
To be honest…both Dennis and I missed some good fish. I had one pop the hook right beside the boat…never got to see it! I hate it when that happens! Another must have snuck my 80 pound Power Pro into the rocks. When I set the hook..the line snapped in mid section. Glad Dennis was there to catch me! 
We never stopped yapping to measure or weigh fish…took a couple fun pictures to give each other crap about and back into the water they went.
On a channel cat bite side note…Pete a regular at Evert’s has been doing well with Sonny’s Stink Bait on the channel cats. I hope to share a seat in his or my boat with him someday as fishing with stink (on the hook and not in the chair next to me) intriges me. I hear so many good things about it (Sonny’s)…I would sure like to give er a looky see.
I’m really glad you had to work early this morning Dennis. I could easliy invision my favorite wifes eyes at 6:00 when I rolled home this morning…then I would have a story starting with “I was looking for a place to crash, when…”
Good friend, good fish’en! 
