The Great Christmas Catfish Roundup...

Me and brother in law Matt headed out this morning for a Christmas Day Catfish roundup. We had gone to church Christmas Eve, had supper with kids and grandkids, Cathy signed on to work a day shift at the hospital the 25th so nurses with kids could do Christmas and our family Christmas is scheduled for January when we could all have time to be together. We were two guys at loose ends.

 Besides checking the fishing log we have a history of fishing on Dec. 24th or 25th going back about 10 years with a lot of fishing going on even further back that that in the last half of December. It's a good time to be on the water.  

Another tip from the old fishing log is that while there has been an occasional December short sleeve day most late December trip photos show we were dressed in coveralls with most catches coming from deep water but some photos show us slip

corking shallow.  On a overcast day with a bit of surface ripple those shallows did look fishable. 

Today we caught the cats on a minor solunar period 25-35' deep on punch bait. They were nice sized, no big fish yet, a few throw backs and about four we kept for frying whole.   

Final total was 29 cats. If we don't go anymore before the end of the year I'll total what we caught for the year in the next few days. I'd guess numbers are down a little bit but we have not been all that mad at them.  Most fish we have caught have been fried fresh as soon as we got home. I might have less than 10 pounds of frozen catfish fillets. When that East Texas Blizzard hits next month and the power is out I'll pull them out of the freezer so my people can eat.  

There were quite a few husky channel cats this size. 

Everybody likes catfish 

People like to eat my fish. I don't have any cooking secrets but I do know what I like.