Catfish Fight
Spending the last several years in Colorado, near the coldwater fisheries that this state is known for, I have been converted from a bait and lure fisherman to a fly fisherman. The transformation kind of occurred out of necessity since I find that my fishing success has improved greatly by using flies rather than the traditional fare of a warm water pond fisherman. Now that I have been converted to a fly fisherman, what am I to do when visiting my family in a land that is dominated by warm water fisheries? I could go back to the bobber and sinker that I grew up with, but reeling in a 2 ounce bluegill with the heavy weight gear that is often used in this kind of fishing was less than satisfying. Rather than rely on that I tend to bring my light-weight fly fishing gear and tie on an elk-hair caddis or a damsel fly and drag them next to the shore of a farm pond. This kind of setup will provide hours of fun for me as I pull in bluegill after bluegill with an occasional crappie. Sometimes I like a little more variety so I will tie on something different like a larger wooly bugger. The action is a little slower with something like this but the fish that I catch are generally bigger and a lot more fun to catch.
One early evening I was fishing with a large wooly bugger close to shore and catching a lot of nice fish. I caught one of the largest bluegills I have ever seen and even a nice bass of about 4 pounds. But then as the sun was about to set, I casted the fly about 10 feet from shore and started dragging it parallel to the bank. It didn’t take more than a few strips of the line when it felt like I hit a strong snag like a stump or a rock. But if it was a strong snag it was the first one that I have ever experienced that moved. So the fight was on.
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At first I thought that it must have been a bass, but after a few minutes of the fight, I knew that it was something different. Well since it wasn’t a bass I knew that it must have been one of the legendary large catfish that we have heard rumors about. There were a few skeletal remains of a large fish that along the shore. Although you couldn’t see much about the fish other than it must have been roughly the length of my arm. If the fish I was currently fighting was in the same category as the remains on the shore, I was in for a heck of a fight. After a few long runs there was no doubt that this fight would not end quickly. I would force the fish in close to shore and then he would swim back out to the middle. We did this many times. Every time I could feel the fish shake his head in an attempt to loose himself from the hook, I shudder as I have lost many fish with that head shake.
After 15 minutes of fighting my arms were beginning to feel the weight of the fish and show some tiring. I was hoping the fish was tiring as well so I called for someone to run around the pond and grab the net. Little did I know, the fish was far from being done. As I was attempting to horse the fish in, I began to second guess myself. I couldn’t remember whether I had 8 lb tippet or 4 lb tippet. Not that either one was enough to horse in a large catfish, but I have broken off a number of times with much smaller fish on a 4 lb tippet. My son, Caleb, and a few other family members came by to hopefully witness the catch and to help me net the fish. Caleb was wading in the pond every time the fish came close to shore but it usually seemed to scare the fish back to the middle the of lake. At least then we could see the waves, or tsunami as my son called it, from the tail as the fish turned. It didn’t take much longer and the sun completely set behind the horizon and most of the crowd went back to the house. I continued on in the fight but my arms were really beginning to tire. It was now nearly a full hour after the fight had began.
Lucky for me and everybody else who were helping, the fish was beginning to show some signs of slowing down. Whenever he ran back to the middle it was slower and less frequently than before. It got to the point where he never went more than about 10 feet from the bank. And then finally he was no more than 2 feet from shore when my son waded out and placed the opening of the net underneath the fish.
I am generally a catch and release fisherman, but recognizing that my in-laws had a large crew to feed the next day and my father-in-law is a big fan of a catfish meal, we kept the fish and had it for dinner the next day. Although the weight of the fish was never calculated, its length was more than 26 inches with a very substantial girth. More importantly, there was enough meat on this fish to feed a dozen or so people at the meal the next day. |
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