On a recent Saturday morning, my wife, Wendy, my dog, Waylon, and I headed to a lake that I had never taken them before. I cannot disclose the location of this lake because swore to keep the location of this lake a secret. I had a couple of good friends share it with me but I promised to not share the name or location of the spot. I'm not trying to be a jerk to readers but instead, I'm trying to uphold a promise that I made my friends. Now that we are through the formalities, let me say that things did not start off the way I was hoping.
This particular lake is known for having good populations of big largemouth, crappie, and bluegill. I don't know what is in the water in this lake but good gracious does it hold some nice fish! I told my wife about the quality of fish we were looking to catch and in all honesty, I was trying to get her excited about getting up early on a Saturday morning and hitting the water with me. As it turned out, we caught the lake on what I would call an "off day". We didn't catch any bluegill, the bass we caught were small, and we only managed to catch one nice bluegill. At one point of the morning, I actually said out loud, "We need to catch something worth a darn. I'm going to be ticked off if we drove all this way and don't end up with a good story." Minutes later, I got my memorable experience.
I had been throwing a Captain Quint streamer for big largemouth and crappie but I didn't get a single bite on that fly. Wendy had been throwing a small jig under an indicator and had only managed to catch a small green sunfish and a little bluegill. As with most things in life, I subscribe to the idea that the best options sometimes exists in the middle of two options. What I mean is that a big, weightless streamer and a small, weighted jig didn't catch anything and that maybe a smaller weighted streamer might be worth throwing. If the fish weren't shallow and didn't want a small meal, then maybe something medium size but heavy might entice them. Just for good measure, I decided to tie on two streamers and settled on a pair of unhackled buggers as my best option. I chose olive because the water was fairly murky.
Aside from changing flies, we also changed locations. I went looking for some drop-offs and some deeper water. I found what I was looking for and decided to cast to shallow water and to strip the flies into deeper water so that they could ride the contour of the changing water depths. In other words, I was just trying to cover different parts of the water column in different depths of water. I located a shallow mud flat that slowly descended to deeper water and made a cast. My fly hadn't been in the water for 2 seconds before a felt a tug, set the hook, and watched a large forked tail slap the water not fewer than 10 times!
All I can guess is that I must have hit feeding a channel cat right on the nose with my fly and that the water was so shallow that it's tail and a lot of its body came out of the water when he went vertical and tried to swim to the bottom. Wendy and I couldn't believe what we had seen and heard. The behavior was probably amplified by the fact that we hadn't caught much that morning and this moment was a very big stray from our norm. After the initial flurry of activity, the fish headed for deeper water and the fight was on!
The fish changed strategies a couple of times during the fight. Sometimes it ran to open water and sometimes it ran to cover in the shallows. I tried to situate the boat between the fish and cover in order to deter it from getting my line wrapped around some branches or vegetation and giving it the necessary leverage to break my line or come unhooked. After putting a serious bend in my fly rod for about 10 minutes, I finally got the monster into the net.
Relief slowly faded as my excitement grew exponentially. Wendy and I looked at the fish in silent reverence for a moment, but the laughter and hoots of excitement filled the air quickly. I couldn't believe that my slow morning had changed into something so surprising. The length and mass of the catfish was as big as I had ever caught before. And finally, in my opinion, I was thoroughly impressed by how beautiful the fish was. The pewter and gold hues that sparkled in the sun were breathtaking.
After a few measurements and pictures, the behemoth swam away without any assistance or revival. The tale of the tape of this channel cat was 25 and 1/2 inches long and 6 pounds, 8 ounces. This catch represents one of the reasons that I love to fish. You never know what is going to happen. A slow day can become really exciting in an instant. Big fish are memorable and make for great stories as well. I fish for the thrill, not the kill, and this fish provided a rush of adrenaline that I absolutely love!
