My girlfriend caught a good one

[Seth]

Well me and my girlfriend decided to go catfishing last night to get her dad some to eat. We went to the local park lake with a tub of turkey livers and our "light" catfish tackle.

We got there and I baited up the rods and threw both of them out. I was cleaning up my mess I made with the livers and my rod bout went into the water, and this is less than a minute after I threw out.

I grabbed the rod and set the hook then handed the rod to my girlfriend becuase I was still cleaning my mess. I figured it was a nice fish the way it hit, but then when it stripped off probably 75 yards of line I was like, DANG!!

I thought we had one of the big ol grass carp the lake has. We'll she played it for a while and I realized that I had NO NET and my rod only had 14 pound test on it so I was wondering if I would be able to get it in.

Then the thing came up to the surface and I seen it was a monster catfish. I didn't know what to do, so I stripped down to just my shorts on and waded out into the water with this monster. This fish was getting if I have to wrestle him up the bank I decided.

I was hollering at some kids we knew on the other side of the lake and to everybody if they had a net for us. One kid came over with a little trout net and I was like "NO NO NO that won't work". Then he seen the fish boil and seen its head and started flippin out too.

By now the other kids we knew started coming over towards us. Just as they got close, my girlfriend got the fish's head turned and got him close enough for me to grab. I grabbed his head with all my might and wrestled his flopping body up the bank, just in time for them kids to see it.

Everybody was hoopin and hollering. One of the kids mom works for the paper, so she came and took pictures of her fish. She will be in the paper this week with her big fish.

We went up and weighed it at the bait shop and the scale tipped down to 45 pounds and it measured 47" long and 27" around its belly.

Here's a pic....

[Wayne SW/MO]

Nice! can't see the Anal fin, but I assume from the size that its a Blue.

[MoCarp]

nice blue!

[Seth]

Yea it was a blue. I was flopping out becuase I wasn't sure if it was a blue or a channel since they only stock channel in that lake. The state record for channel is only 34-10, so had it been a channel it would of crushed the record hehe.

But still, that's a fish of a life time for her....and thats only like her 5th catfish she's caught in her life LOL.

[Quillback]

Nice fish, great story, her dad will certainly have enough fish for dinner!

[Seth]

We had some of him fried up yesterday for lunch along with some hush puppies and macaroni and cheese.

Was delicious.