Belated Fishing Report With Pics

[Bittle]

Me and some buddies take about a week each spring to try and chase either the crappie spawn or the white bass spawn. We usually always set some trot lines just to see what we come up with. Here is how it went.

I fished before they arrived in town on the 15th to try to locate fish. It was a rough day as I tried to find the crappie and managed to find a couple shorts. I did find some bass in the backs of coves but they were small and I was looking for fish to eat.

The next morning we loaded up and started setting trot lines on the James river arm of the lake. We primarily used gold fish but had a few worms and blue gill from the previous day. After getting some lines out we headed up the James to hopefully find the white bass running. And they were. It was by no means fast and furious for us but we saw Duckydoty tearing them up from the bank. We did end up with some decent size males and a few females for the table. One of my buddies, Chad caught a keeper largemouth from a brushpile crappie fishing. To my dismay he kept it, but its his fish so oh well. Here are some pics.

The next morning we checked our trot lines and found that we had some decent fish on them. We ended up with 1 flathead about 10-12 pounds two channels in the 9 pound range and about a 3 and a 2 pound channel. We again headed back up to Taylor Shoals and started drifting throwing swimming minnows and grubs. The best producer by far was a solid silver swimming minnow. We caught another good amount of males and a few more females. See Pic

The next morning we trecked out again and checked our trot lines. This time we were in for a little excitement. We started checking our lines and were finding fish on each line. The very last line we get to, I pick up and feel a slight tug. I tell them we may have a fish and Chad mans the net. Only to find the next hook I pull up to have a rock attached to it. So I unhook the rock and continued down the line and feel and good tug. That tug turns into a huge tug. As I get the fish close to the surface we see it is a huge flathead. Chad drops the net as it was not good to us anymore. As I'm looking at the fish I keep noticing something near the flatheads stomach. I then realize its another fish. A channel cat. So as the fish gets near Chad grabs the flathead by the mouth and yanks it into the boat. A flathead about 40 pounds. Then I get to looking at the trot line. There was also about a 3 pound channel attached to the same hook. I start looking and the flathead had attempted to eat the channel and somehow in the struggle, had also gotten hooked. You wouldn' t believe me so I took pictures. The first picture is of Chad holding the fish in the boat. If you notice toward his knee you can see the channel cat hanging from the line. You can also notice how white its tail is from being chewed on.

These next few are to just see how big the fish is. I'm 6-2 175 pounds and it was as long as about half of me.

After the excitement we headed back up to Taylor Shoals to chase the whites again. I was having a decend morning with the sows with a stringer of 7. Thats until I dropped the stringer over the side of the boat trying to drop the anchor. The stringer was tied on the same cleat as the anchor and away they drifted. I tried to snag the stringer but no luck. I didn't mind losing the meat, just the fact that I released them to almost certain death. Anyway we tried to catch a few crappie at a good brushpile I had found and only managed a few shorts. As the rain clouds moved in we decided that we needed to rebait our trot lines for the night bite. We were out of goldfish so I dropped them off to run up to the bait store. As the rain started coming down the boats were trying to get off the lake like mad so I pushed off and began drifting down the bank at Bridgeport. I picked up a black and pink slider and started casting to the rock bank and caught two nice keeper crappie and about a 14 inch largemouth. I hooked another good fish but it pulled off before getting a look at it. They returned to the boat and we had to hunker inside a dock for the heavy rain to pass through. After rebaiting the hooks we went to the house to start cleaning fish for a fish fry. Here are a few more pictures.

These two are of the Flathead and its meal.

Pretty amazing in my book.

The next morning they had to leave halfway early so we decided to just run the lines. We ended up keeping two channels and another pretty good flathead.

We ended up having a blast and my buddies love to eat fish. We had all we could eat one night and I believe that they took home almost 21 quarts of fish. We never did get an actual weight on the flathead as my fathers scale was too small for it. 40 pounds is a rough guess. Hope you enjoyed the story. It still gets me smiling to think about it.

Bittle

[slider]

Bittle I wish I had known you were down Id have liked to get together with you again. Maybe later in the spring at Warsaw. Glad you had a good trip. slider

[patfish]

Bittle, great report and thanks for sharing the story and the pics. You nailed it brother, that's what its all about, enjoying something you love to do, with good friends. Glad y'all had a great time.

[Tightline]

Man,you guys took a load of meat out of the ole Rock.Thanks for posting pic's,they sure help tell the story. Good job.

[abkeenan]

Bittle. Nice mess of fish. I always just go perch fishing to load my trot line, keeping the bigger ones to eat and the medium to smaller ones for the bait. I havent ever tried gold fish so i was wondering how they compare to perch? I know sunfish die almost immediately when u use them on the trot line so i always just pitch them back in the lake after i catchem. Do the goldfish live for a while once they are on the line? Thanks in advance for any info.

-Brett

[redbud]

Good times, excellent story with pics to match . Did you guys have any beers?

[Bittle]

Slider I would love to catch you guys back up at Warsaw this spring. It should be getting good anytime now. I'll let you know when I get some time to run over and try it below the dam. As far as the brews, we had a couple warm brews in the boat we forgot to put ice on. After we caught the big catfish, we decided warm or not we needed one. It was one of the best warm brews I've ever had.