Catn’ through the ice

OK so I’m fishing in 35′ of water, lots of fish marked in the bottom 10′, generally speaking these fish are showing little to no interest in my offerings but occasionally a large blip comes up and investigates my bait (a green flirty girty Christmas treed with three grubs) one such instance the fish inhaled my offering and with 2# gold stren the fight was on, the first thing my buddy says is : “hey do you hook the bottom”- and he was serious, so I sez- I think I’m gonna need a little help here. The first time I got her up to the hole, she did not like that at all, back down she went HARD!!! The 2nd time my buddy grabbed her and with true catfish get no respect fashion- he had to use a pliers- What a wimp…… if you look closely at the picture you can see the flirty girty in its mouth!