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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 AND
SHOP WITHOUT DROPPING
www.cincinnaticatfishing.com/Shop1.html
Over700Bargings4YOU www.bargins4tightbudgets.com
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!!