Catfish dreams

Well I finally made it out with my good buddy Pete to fish the Minnesota last Thursday.  He bought a G3 jet a few years ago and has really figured out how to catch channel and flathead catfish.  Pete has chased many big fish which still includes spending summers guiding in Alaska east of Bristol Bay.

The bite had been slower than normal with the temperature, high water, and moon phase working against us but we had it scheduled so we had to go.  We hopped around to a few places tying off to tree limbs looking for sharp breaks and hungry fish.  Flathead rods had 4"-8" bullheads hooked through the back and channel cats had deadbait.

It was slow to start as expected but it was a nice night, the grill was going and the beer was cold.

Finally we got a few bites and action was fast for about a 1/2 hour.  Now I grew up set-line fishing on the lower Wolf River.  There were many a summer morning when we would take the 76 Lund out and be pumped to have 3 10lbers on the line.  But that wasn't fighting them in the dark, with head-lamps, by brush with fish pulling drag out.

The first nice one was about 17lbs.

The second big boy was my biggest flathead ever - 41 inches and 30lbs. 

He still had lots of fight when we let him go and Pete got a little wet.

We got off the water around midnight

We made it home late but mainly because we were waiting in the McDonald's drive-thru for the shake machine to fire back up (did get 4 free meals passes, 2 of which are on a hand-written piece of cardboard).  It was a blast and something anyone who likes to fish would enjoy.  Pete's in "Cat-Leauge" and he knows the river and has a lot of guide experience - you won't be disappointed.