Hard Fishing Hard Fish Week Day 3...

Cathy's brother Matt joined us on hard fish week day 3 and it was harder fishing. The weather was colder with rain splatters and occasional fog. We spent 6 hours on the lake and caught 36 catfish. They ran smaller and while we caught fish in each place we moved around a bit to four different spots. All on slip corks in 4-10 foot of water.

I think this bird photo says it all. 

Cathy and brother Matt. 

Our shallow water fish technique is we tie the back of the boat so the wind swings the front into a likely pocket near flooded brush or a shallow sand bar and we sit in the front two seats focusing our casts to a small area. Hard to fish a bunch of folks like this as opposed to hot weather fishing where we tie over deep structure and let lines straight down. 

We have developed something new. If you look closely at this photo there is a green float marking the edge of a creek channel at 10' deep. On the right sharp eyes might just make out my day glo orange float. I'm doing it the old way with the yellow rod being a 1970s Eagle Claw with a matching vintage 70s Zebco 33. I have pulled quite a few cats from this deeper  area the past two days.  

I think this will be a tactic we can use, marking the drop that the cats use to stair step into the shallow feeding area. 

The boat is filthy. It's been washed by rough waves, rained on, has a lot of organic debris from crowding tight to the brush and the usual smears of bait and chum.  

36 cats mostly smaller 14 inch fish on a cold day. My facebook memories thing shows me fishing without a shirt on this day 2 years ago.