Weekend Catfish Report...

Once again we have the weekend catfish report. It's a bit slow this late summer and we have been fishing the Hanks Creek area for several years now without moving around too much.  In the past with hot temperatures and dropping lake levels we have moved south of the 147 bridge and that is the plan for the next trip. On this trip we managed 17 cats with lots of undersize throw backs. 

Me, Cathy and Matt cooked those fish right up having them hot on the table mere minutes after cleaning. You can't get fish fresher than at my house. Here is a photo of the products I use. I just opened that big jar of meal. I had the bright idea to date it but I wrote the wrong month with the intention to see how long it lasts. It claims to cook 27-32 pounds of fish. 

So far an early count shows us having caught 550 catfish with 9 pounds being the largest for the year. Probably if you add in pond fishing, panfish, them old green sunfish and catch and release days we are well over 600 total. People ask me all the time for the next big fish fry but it's not happening. We might have frozen 5 pounds of fish and we have either given away everything else, traded it for fresh vegetables or cooked it and ate it soon as we could without freezing. With Covid 19 precautions we have closed the fishing/party circle to family only. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you need another photo of Cathy and catfish.  

Wind was light and breezy making the August day on the water very pleasant. I see in some of the internet fishing reports some lakes have crowding problems. I'm not seeing it in the spots I fish. It was pretty quiet on the lake yesterday and just about perfect.  

Next trip we will fish the Amber Forest area of the lake. It's a place that looks wide open but dropping lake levels should revel lots of treacherous stick up with more right under the water. That's ok, stick ups mean tie ups near drop offs and channels making easy fishing for the pontoon boatman.