Usually, I don't expect to catch many big catfish this time of the year but last week things got interesting. I had a guest from Penn. visit me for a day of fishing. This guy is a fairly experienced angler and I have fished with him before so we talked regularly about the little things that I pick up when on the lake. We actually had a terrible day of fishing with only one bass caught in a four hour time period. I was about to call it a day when one of the back lines started to do a little bouncing, sort of like a perch was nibbling on the bait. I had cautioned him about the pesty perch but he kept getting nervous when the rod tip jiggled.
I told him that sometimes when a predator is hanging around a bait fish, the bait will try to swim away and that makes the rod tip move like that. I suggested that he pick up he rod and take up just a little line to make it look like the bait was swimming away from whatever was chasing it. He followed my instructions and suddenly the rod tip went down and hit the water. Shocked as he was, he said that he had snagged a log but he soon realized that the rod was jumping as it pulled away from him. I said, "looks like you got a big fish" and big fish it was.
Fortunately I had checked all the drag settings before we left the dock and I told him to make sure he let the fish run if it wanted to because he was using a 10 pound line test and the only way he could land this fish was to tire it out. He took my advice and fought the monster for more than 20 minutes. Each time the fish came close enough to the surface to see the boat, it took a deep dive for the bottom. When he finally tired the fish, I tried to get it in my net, but it was so fat that it wouldn't go into the net.
I grabbed my hand grabber to try and grab it by the mouth and lift it into the boat but the fish was so heavy that it broke the grabber in half. He finally maneuvered the fish so its head went straight into the net and the two of us were able to life the fish into the boat with great difficulty. I grabbed my scale and after some effort we weighed it at 40 pounds and got it back into the water.
The lesson learned from tis experience is that when the bite looks very light like a perch, take the rod and let the bait move like it is getting away. You may be surprised at the results. Also make sure your drag is set so a big fish can run. Thats the only way you can tire a big fish to the point that you can boat it.
