First Boat Trip Of 2005
You have permission to publish this article in its entirety either, electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your Publication would be greatly appreciated! Thank You.
First Boat Trip of 2005
Met my brother at the boat ramp around 11 in the morning. It was the first time he got his boat in the water this season. I was very surprised by how clear the river was compared to the week before. When we powered away from the ramp we started planning where to start fishing. It was then I noticed the fish finder was not in the boat. That meant we had to fish spots we knew about and hoped the fish would be there. I had intended to use the fish finder to pinpoint the fish to increase our odds of landing more fish than usual for us.
My brother got all 6 rods baited up as we motored to the fist spot. He used large chunks of frozen skipjack as bait on all the rods. He has an array of 6 rod holders that allows a wide area to be fished at the same time. We settled back once all the lines were in the water at our first stop. One of my brother's rods got a good bite. The fish hit it hard some more. My brother did not get very concerned; he said he would just let the fish hook himself. The rod did not move any after he said that. We started to wind in our lines to move to our next spot. He picked up the rod that had the bite that is when he realized the fish was still on the line. When he got it to the top of the water he saw the catfish had wrapped the line around its body. There was no way it could use the tail section of its body at all to swim off with the line. My brother had to cut the line so the fish could be free of the mess so he could take a couple pictures. The Channel cat was in the 6 pound range and good shape as he was returned to the Licking River.
We checked out a number of other holes we knew about as we traveled north on the river. Without the fish finder we were just depending on the fish to be in the spots they had been weeks before. The fish did not co-operate with that plan so we headed out into the Ohio River. We had our lines in 3 different places with NO bites. Last spot was a deep spot that I have fished a lot of times in the past. The 30 feet deep area was hard to hold the boat with the faster current on the Ohio River. Once we got the boat squared away and lines in the water we relaxed. One of my brother's rods got hit hard. He did not get up to get the rod. By this time the line was started to head out into the middle of the river. I told him to get it before the fish crossed up all the other rods. He did have the fish for about 4 cranks of the reel then the line went limp. That cat had cleaned off all the bait. A short time after that I got a bite when I got my line in the bait was all chewed up. I put on a smaller piece of bait and cast it back to the same general area. The rod started moving with the bite. I picked it up and when he had the line tight I set the hook. He was a small blue cat around 3 pounds. He was easy to get into the boat no need of a dip net. Took two photos and he was swimming back to his home.
It was getting time for us to head on home as well. We pulled up our anchors and got the lines back in the boat. The 15 minute run back up the Licking got us back to the ramp. The shadows were getting long and the air was on the cold side as the boat was on the trailer. We were both ready to head back to a warm home after the day of fresh air. We will be sure to have our fish finder to locate the fish next time we use his boat. Tight lines to all. nlcatfish@fuse.net webmaster for Cincinnati Catfishing www.cincinnaticatfishing.com
SHOP WITHOUT DROPPING www.cincinnaticatfishing.com/Shop1.html
Links 4 Fishing Information And Supplies www.cincinnaticatfishing.com/links4fishing.html
About the author: Have been catfishing around the Downtown Cincinnati area of the Ohio River for over 40 years. Gone catfishing at Lockport 5 times over the past 10 years. It is the greastest place to catch lots of huge CHANNEL catsfish in North America!!