tiny fish early, huge fish late = new PB

Was out last night, tried a new spot first (new to me anyway, every spot on the river’s been tried by someone ) Within 10 minutes I had a 24 inch flatty. Not bad, he was super aggressive and hit a large “7” (nine point five?) inch bullhead. Any night with any flatty biting is always a good night, so having one in the boat already definitely made my night.

Well, 6 hours later it’s 1:00 in the morning and that’s the only bite I’ve had. I had what may have been a run in between the 7:00 fish and now, but it could have been debris or whatever too, because when I picked it up there was nothing there. So I moved to a different spot where I’d actually seen fish in the middle of the night before.

At 1:15 I had a super-aggressive run, tearing line off the reel almost faster than the clicker would let it go. Before I could set a hook he was gone. Reeled up a crushed bullhead. Well this put me in a great mood. Since I was planning an all nighter, it was good to get some adrenaline going to keep me awake.

I was frustrated that the fish let that last one go. I decided to downsize. My okuma reel had a lighter bait clicker on it than the garcia reel that I just missed a fish on, plus it was rigged up with an 8/0 hook instead of 10/0. I threw a 6 inch bullhead on it for good downsizing measure and tossed it out. At about 2:25 or so, I got a familiar thump. No clicker run, just a huge thump. I yanked my rod out of the holder and held it, with the baitrunner mode still on. Within about 10 seconds, the fish started spooling off line. I engaged the spool and after a slight load, I set the hook into a monster! Wow, this was a big fish, and the rod was certainly not OVER-sized (it’s supposed to be my channel cat rod). About 10-15 minutes later, my arms were sore and there was a fish in the net. I pulled it in, measured it up, took a couple pics, and let her go.

45×29 inches, about 45 lbs, I’d say. I was a scale forgetting dork. Oh well! I got good accurate measurements thanks to the 98 cent 5 foot flexible retractable tape from menards! That thing rocks compared to my old 25 foot metal tape that I had been using. Man, what a night! Start off strong, then finish off stronger!!

Stayed out another hour and a half, but I couldn’t really pay close attention after that fish, I was too excited. So I just packed up and left at about 4-ish. 2 fish on 3 runs, fish separated by almost 8 hours. Wow. Perfect weather, fog was just starting to set in by the time I left.

Here’s a couple pics. The blood isn’t the fish, it’s me. He got me pretty good, I bled all over my boat, shirt, camera, etc…

Next time I might wear gloves like a girl…this pic was after I got home and washed it up!

Very nice Flathead
It does speed up the metabolism when the clicker screams
I had a hard time hookin’ up the other night also. Like you said, it does keep a guy awake

As far as the gloves….don’t do it man You only became blood bro’s with one of the coolest fish that swims

Awesome!!!! We only had one run and it snapped the line at hook set. Was still great to be out there and goo to see you guys. We left around 2am. Great fish and awesome blood! Thats going to leave a mark!

I took my Dad out last night and we got a flat right away and I forgot to measure or weigh it but I did get pics not big but fun we also got 6 channels 2 nice ones over 4 pounds. Fun fathes day trip. Congtrats on you flats!
I really like my Okuma and my father is getting one as soon as Bob gets in some more. I love the control of those reels.

Nice fish Mate!!!
Have to admit you had me a little worried when I got the text “call me” Glad it was good news. I had a hard time falling back to sleep. LOL
Way to go on the Personal Best.

sorry, that wasn’t the intent at all. i’ll have to put the measurements in next time….’call me if you want the story!’ type of thing. dang.

hey i’ve been looking up tagging stuff. anyone know if it is legal to tag fish in MN? i wouldn’t mind buying a tagging kit if it’s not against the law. there’s a site out there that manages the database and whatnot for you, they obviously make money on the tag and applicators, so they give the database access out for free…

edit – oh, found the data on page 13 of the regs —

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Marking or tagging fish and then releasing them without a DNR permit is unlawful

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Looks like you have a good time…even with the battle scare!

I spoke with a MN DNR fella about tagging last winter. He gave me quite a few reasons why the DNR doesn’t like to allow non DNR folks to tag fish. Some I never thought of… and they all made sense.

Some reasons that I recall where:

They become public record.
Gives away the location fish are caught and recaught
The worst thing that can happen is that I would catch a tagged fish…and the DNR wouldn’t have a record of it.
This happens when a fisherman/tagger loses the paperwork.
Rain/wind/lost/dog ate them.

He did say that I/we were welcome to apply for a tagging study…but also wanted the person that was applying to be aware of these things.

With the number of cats shown in this forum…I would think this tagging info would be huge to the folk that make sense of this type of data. IF it was done right.

Yeah, with tags and people getting history off them, those fish could be more easily harvested by people who didn’t care about the resource. I definitely DON’T want that to happen! Great post, thanks for the info!

I think you and my buddy caught the same fish!

That’s hilarious. I guess you know it’s 43lbs then

The next step now is to start naming them.

Awesome! I’m going to whip out the full photo that hasn’t been sized down. I’m sure those bullet holes will show up even better!

See, you don’t need a scale — save money by just catching fish that have already been weighed

edit:

Got home from work and cropped out the head on that full sized photo — here it is:

Looks the same to me!

Hey dtro what happened to your avatar? What is that supposed to be?

I love the new Avatar Dtro.

Those marks look like they are from your sinkers landing on his head. Maybe you should take away the marker that you put up so you could keep going back and catching him.

I didn’t want to say it, but the secret will get out eventually. I was fishing that area with Larry one night and we saw a dark figure about 7ft tall poke out of the woods. It just stood there at the waters edge and stared at the water. All the sudden as quick as a heron, it snatched a flatty about that size and held it up.
We didn’t want it (whatever it was) to kill the fish, so, the quick thinker I am, grabbed a bag of Jack’s Links and threw it as far as I could. He let go of the fish and went for the jerky and we scrammed as fast as we could.

I now know, that is the fish he was holding up. Look at the handprint.

That is amazing! Seeing one stick around in the same area could teach us a little about flats liking there spots.

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That is amazing! Seeing one stick around in the same area could teach us a little about flats liking there spots.

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It happens a lot more than you might think

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I didn’t want to say it, but the secret will get out eventually. I was fishing that area with Larry one night and we saw a dark figure about 7ft tall poke out of the woods. It just stood there at the waters edge and stared at the water. All the sudden as quick as a heron, it snatched a flatty about that size and held it up.
We didn’t want it (whatever it was) to kill the fish, so, the quick thinker I am, grabbed a bag of Jack’s Links and threw it as far as I could. He let go of the fish and went for the jerky and we scrammed as fast as we could.

I now know, that is the fish he was holding up. Look at the handprint.

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Dude…. you promised to never tell that story.
You really bummed me out chucking my Jack Links to that whatever you want to call it…. Still wondering if that fish was worth it. I guess when I catch it might be….

This thread has gone off the deep end. I still don’t get the avatar. I must be ‘slow’.

Flats are like any fish they are only go to as far as they have to to eat.

I figured it was the big one Lumpy caught earlier this year I just didn’t look close enough.

Great CSI work Phil!!!

And Congrats Brian!

Just a couple of stick figures cleverly made into an animated .gif where it looks like they are pounding on some invisible barrier to get out. At least that’s as deep as I get with the meaning.

The one thing about a big pig getting re-caught is if you want to keep catching her, she’s going to learn and probably never get caught again. Oh, another thing is you know that she probably isn’t sharing her territory with a bigger one!

Some of you guys amaze me with your knowledge of the river. Bob knew exactly where Chris caught his during the tournament. Although someone on the boards was apparently way off. Not naming names. But give me a little credit. I like to move around a little!

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The one thing about a big pig getting re-caught is if you want to keep catching her, she’s going to learn and probably never get caught again. Oh, another thing is you know that she probably isn’t sharing her territory with a bigger one!

Some of you guys amaze me with your knowledge of the river. Bob knew exactly where Chris caught his during the tournament. Although someone on the boards was apparently way off. Not naming names. But give me a little credit. I like to move around a little!

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Bob knew cause chris told him and it was a stones throw from the ONE HIT WONDER HOLE!!!>>
I was way off, But I thought that I heard him/someone say a certain section of the river. I was very confounded and a little disapointed… looking at the background and trying to figure out how that background fit in the 35w 77 strech?!?!? (Need to have my ears cleaned.) Once I figured the location it fit into my profiling…. Thats a good stretch of river that I have been working for the better part of this year.
I’m with you..Pug on the moving around. Big fish when they are caught more than once… start to learn the drill they either learn not to get caught or don’t put the full umpppfff into the fight. Fish are fish and need to feed.
Like the say old habits die hard both with fish and humans….

Oh, I didn’t know Bob had a hint. The way he was telling it was as if he could just tell by the color of the sky and the refection off the the fish.

It’s definitely and interesting stretch of river. This year is the first time I have seen it. That particular spot has changed a great deal with the river coming down. The current and current seam changed how they flow through it.

I want more CSI work done – and not interpreting the photo to find out where to fish – I want to know how it got those scars – there’s a pattern there. When was the picture with the fresh scars taken? Clearly it healed over, so it isn’t like it’s getting abraded in the spot it’s hanging out. So sleuths – what made the marks, specifically?

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I want more CSI work done – and not interpreting the photo to find out where to fish – I want to know how it got those scars – there’s a pattern there. When was the picture with the fresh scars taken? Clearly it healed over, so it isn’t like it’s getting abraded in the spot it’s hanging out. So sleuths – what made the marks, specifically?

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Did you not read my post….I wasn’t kidding about the sansquatch.

Ok maybe I was, and you are right there is a pattern. Find what caused it and find the fish

Maybe it’s a catfish STD (spawning transmitted disease)

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I want more CSI work done — I want to know how it got those scars – there’s a pattern there. When was the picture with the fresh scars taken? Clearly it healed over, so it isn’t like it’s getting abraded in the spot it’s hanging out.

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June 2nd for the first picture and June 17th for the second picture, 15 days of healing.

I’m assuming there not spawning scars is it possible they are boat motor related or maybe some sort of rip/rap injury? I don’t think its a Dam injury because there really isn’t one close buy.

Good call Pier. I am thinking trolling motor possibly? I would think a close call like that with an outboard would have killed it. The pattern looks like all the marks occurred immediately after each other, but it isn’t a long slash, so it appears to be something that “skipped” across it’s head. Rotating blades would do that. Also, notice the deepest wound appears to be the “highest” part on the head (shallowest below the surface) if it were flat on the bottom or slightly angled to the side. The prop came at it from the front. From the cats point of view possibly ever so slightly right of center, between 12-1 o’clock. The first 2 marks are close together and then get further apart as if the fish was sitting on the bottom and then made a dash. To get away he took off to the left, which would explain the curved pattern going off the right side of the fish. A trolling motor + shallow water makes sense because you wouldn’t run an outboard in shallow water, it would make a quiet approach.

Any more questions?

I thought the fish was injured when “someone” was clonking a little too aggressively

I would expect a trolling motor to leave more of a slash, but who knows? I’m still very skeptical of that because of the distance between scars. They run up from the side near the gill plate and kind of curve around, which I also wouldn’t expect from a prop.

But the strangest thing is that they’re sort of round, but at different levels on the fish as it would lay there – almost like something punching down rather than scraping by.

Or… they’re lamprey scars… Usually they run back in a pattern, but you can see the slide rather than such distinct spots, but it’s a possibility.

Maybe he got stuck in some concrete and rebar debris.

or maybe sasquatch tried to take a bite out of him.