Lets see and hear your best cat catch of this year

It doesn’t have to be your largest or even a big one, just the most fun catch and the story to go with it.

BK this is one of those awsome days Marty and I had this year!!!!

I guess I’ve been spending too much time trapping. Was expecting to see Ferral cats as coyote bait…

This year I decided that I was going to start fishing deep for bass. I read up on everything that I could find and after I couldn’t read any more I went out on my first deep bass hunt. I got nothin till the end of the day. And that was a pike. Not a huge guy but still a ton of fun to catch. I got him off the hook, threw him back, made a couple more casts with my DD22 and WHAM! Hooked into another fish. Get him up to the boat and it is a pike again, but not just any pike, the same pike I had just caught. I laughed but got him off the trebels and threw him back again. Couple more casts and WHAM! hooked into another fish! Another pike. THE SAME PIKE! I know this because this pike had a wound on its back from a previous fight with another fish. To make a long story short, I caught that same pike another 2 times before he stopped following my boat. That is my best fishing story of 2010!

Definitely the 28lb flathead that ate both my bullhead and my buddies bullhead at the same time. The fight didn’t last but a minute and it wasn’t the biggest cat of the season but it was one of the most memorable nights catfishing this summer. Second runner up would probably be finally witnessing a tagged cat being caught.

Take Care!!
Kevin

My friend and I were fishing a local fishing hole from shore. We were throwing bobbers out there with crawlers on a #4 hook I believe. We were slaughtering perch, sunnies, and gills the entire time. After my friend seeing his worm fly off on the cast, he started to reel in the bobber to replace the worm. About 15 feet from shore, my friend snags on something and then the bobber gets attacked by something leaving a boil and taking the bobber under. It happened so fast we didn’t see what it was. He kept on reeling, but there was good resistance. Eventually we got it to shore and who would have guessed a northern struck the bobber and entangled himself in the fishing line. The pike was only about 20 some inches long. My friend was also missing his hook… so perhaps there was another pike that went after the hook. Throughout the summer he ended up catching 2 more northerns at the same fishing hole only using a bobber and #4 hook with night crawlers. I know northerns can be aggressive, but I have never seen them attack such a small presentation…

Catfishing was terrible this year. There are no catfish in Lake Mendota.

The 38# flathead you put me on. That 8# wasn’t too bad either. You already know the story.

No picture, but i caught a huge clam on a piece of cut bait when shore fishing from the Mississippi in St.Paul. didnt know you could catch a clam on a rod and reel….

Can someone borrow me a picture to photoshop? I don’t have any stories or pics this year

I was drifting the clam beds below the P-4 dam, pitching a 3/16oz jig and Ringworm when it gets “smacked”! Now I am using a EX69 MLXF rod, tiny Plueger 6725 reel with about 100yds of 6# mono…
After a good 15 min battle with fierce runs against my drag and violent headshakes this whiskered Dude fills up my 22″ Beckman net…
Dunno what she weighed but she was long and muscular…couldn’t fit her whole body in the picture…
Any guesses?

First figure 8 Muskie!

Fishing with fellow IDOer Swollen Goat this year on the Minnesota between Courtland and Judson in early June. Camped out on an island fishing cutbait for channels while setting up camp at about 3PM. My rod completely flattens the rod holder and goes running for the water. I grabbed it and set the hook only to hear the terrible sound of sand in my trusty Mitchell 300. After a nice long fight, a 30″ channel, which is my PB channel to date:

The day I went swimming with Pearl at lake Calhoun was a lot of fun

reminds me of a spring or so ago when I went to Calhoun and saw a nice sized Musky sunning himself in the open.

How many ‘skis did you get off that one bait Bob?

Also caught a tennis ball pan fishing with a bobber and worm from the bottom of the reservoir….for some reason the bobber even went under and then I apparently set the hook into the tennis ball…

I caught this nice catfish on a red ball once. You may have seen the pictures, it made the interweb

I had a blast this last year open water.

Photo #1 – 50″ PB sturgeon with BK while I was in massive pain from a infection in my face, had to have emergency surgery the next day. The pain went away every time I caught a fish!

Photo #2 – PB flathead 42×26 roughly 40lbs – Another great time with BK!

Photo #3 – PB Channel Cat 33×21

Photo #4 – Canoe style P4 in highwater! Dan and I got a double with a flathead and a sturgeon, had a little fun with it!

However, the best part of the season was watching all these fish swim back down to the deeps. Releasing these fish is almost as good as catching them!

THE FIRST TIME I HELD MY GRANDAUGHTER

I HAVE NEVER FELT SO HUMBLE

Good one Jeff!

took me 2 hrs to get this one to the boat

John has big hands.

I think the quality of fish boated in 2010 was better than normal for me, but time on the water got cut short in late summer due to work and school commitments. I rarely made it out from mid-July through the remainder of the season. Its somewhat depressing working your posterior off all day, only to come home and do the same with homework (oh well, its only temporary)

Best memory of 2010 was when my good friends from Northern Wisconsin came for their annual “Flathead Fest,” which commonly entails a fair amount of cheep beer and undersized catfish. Every year we get decent #s, but until recently we have been plagued by little 5lb turds.

The best part of that weekend was when we saw the 10ft rod baited with a whole (dead) sheephead load up from a silent stalker. I told my buddy there was a fish on and to set the hook immediately. Since the rod was baited with a greasy ole sheephead that sat on the floor of my boat all night, and was casted a distance shorter than the length of my boat…he thought I was full of BS. Well, needless to say he ended up setting the hook on a 40lb fish ~10ft from the boat. The first pic is of my buddy in awe over his PB fish. I can honestly say that I get more excited watching fish get caught by friends that dont catfish, than catching them myself.

The remaining pics are a couple choice ones from the season…when I had time to get out.

I like the third picture. I don’t care what anyone says, I think flatheads are pretty. I shouldn’t have looked though. I feel cabin fever creeping in early this year.

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I like the third picture. I don’t care what anyone says, I think flatheads are pretty. I shouldn’t have looked though. I feel cabin fever creeping in early this year.

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X2

When I was a kid, I loved to fish but my dad didn’t, nor did my mom. We was po-folk, to boot, so owning a boat was just a dream for someday in my long-anticipated future. I’ve worked hard over the intervening years and managed to land a decent job that affords me a bit of “fun money”, if not a lot. And I’ve never lost my passion for fishing. I mean, I’ve been known to (when desperate) try to catch water bugs in a mud puddle with a safety pin and the string off a bag of dog food.

All that just to set the stage for The Rest of the Story:

My wife and I were visiting my family in Grand Rapids, MN, in early summer 2009. We were leaving town to head back to the Twin Cities when I saw it. Sitting in a ditch, on a trailer… an older pontoon boat, 21′, on a trailer, with a huge plywood sign that said “Please Steal Me!”

Actually it said “$2700”, which I interpreted as pretty much the same thing.

So, I ended up pulling a boat home from that trip to Grand Rapids. And over the course of the summer, it got used… a lot. Early on, though, it finally got outfitted with the minimum requirements for night fishing on the river. I recruited a friend and out we went, on its maiden voyage.

We didn’t get a lot of action that night, actually. We were throwing a combination of live bullheads and cut sucker. We tried a few likely places and got a few decent hits, but nothing serious. It was on our 4th spot, shortly before it was time to head home when suddenly we both noticed my rod tip start to dance… but my clicker never went off! I grabbed it and hauled on the line and it felt more like a log than a fish, but I got a bit of a headshake so I kept fighting. Then it happened.

The tail slap. It sounded like someone threw a cinder block into the river. We got excited.

It never did put up much of a fight, really… but when we got it to the boat we were in for a stunning sight.

43×29… 41#… the biggest freshwater fish I’ve ever seen outside of Cabella’s and by far the biggest fish I’ve ever caught by at least a factor of 8. It was awesome.

It was also the first night on the river in my new boat. It was now the personal best to beat. 40#… they’re out there, for sure. But sheesh… it was by far the best and most tragic way to start a river fishing career ever!

PS – the last two pics are of my buddy Jeff’s best late-season channel, just for scale. He’s the same size I am, so between the two of us we managed to run the gamut in catfish for the year.

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I had a blast this last year open water.

Photo #1 – 50″ PB sturgeon with BK while I was in massive pain from a infection in my face, had to have emergency surgery the next day. The pain went away every time I caught a fish!

It was a really good year for both of us, weren’t it dude? We need to get out this winter and open up the spring flattie runs together, too… at least we have some good spots!

Photo #2 – PB flathead 42×26 roughly 40lbs – Another great time with BK!

Photo #3 – PB Channel Cat 33×21

Photo #4 – Canoe style P4 in highwater! Dan and I got a double with a flathead and a sturgeon, had a little fun with it!

However, the best part of the season was watching all these fish swim back down to the deeps. Releasing these fish is almost as good as catching them!

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I hate you Jake… I take you out for a couple INCREDIBLE nights in my boat and you leave me behind for the rest of the crazy fun . Well, I never. I’m going to go straight home and tell my mommy on you!

The best night this past season was with Walleyeben who had only been catting 2 times,both with me.The first trip we got alot of fish but nothing over 20lb.2nd trip we got a few 12 to 18s and just about to call it a night when his rod began to sing that lovely song of big fish heading out to parts unknown.
She came in at 41lbs of fight.a few days later he had purchased his own cat fishing rods and reels and is now hooked.

Another “conversion”!

A lot of good storys and memories in this thread.