The Catfish are Shallow...

After a few days of soaking rain we took advantage of the sunny break yesterday afternoon to run to the lake for some catfishing. With rising water the main boat ramp at Hank's Creek was closed but the park attendants were nice enough to let us launch at the campground ramp. 

The other day I was walking into a local store with Coraline and Warren in tow and an old man stopped, looked us over and said "I see you have a couple of swampers." A quick lookup tells me a swamper is an assistant, a helper with the term going back to the southern United States in 1857 to mean a laborer who cleared roads through the swamp for tree fellers. Cathy has the swampers help her unload the boat.

Coraline has developed some impressive casting skills. I remeber that Morgan also learned to cast a Garcia 5000 by the time he was 6. I don't think my dad let me have a casting rod in the boat till I was shaving which if I remember correctly was about the 4th grade. 

We tried our proven spring time spot, a wind swept sand bar with no luck so we relocated farther back in the same cove to a creek bend about 8'deep. They were there cruising the brush edge. By sundown the action was pretty quick We ended the day with 26 cats some about 18 inches long. 

Warren likes to give the cats a tail rub. 

Cathy and the swampers drive the boat on the trailer in the dusky dark. We came home and fried up a big salad bowl of crisp fillets and put about 5 pounds in the freezer for another day.