The Great New Year's Day Catfish Round Up...

How does a fat boy spend a warmer than normal, yes dears climate change is real, New Year's Day? 

He spends it on the Great New Year's Day Catfish Round Up. 

There was not a single car on the boat ramp as other fishermen ganged up inside somewhere catching Covid instead of fish and we headed down the boat cut for the deep water spot where we most recently caught catfish. There were a few holding there but with an approaching cold front expected later in the night the wind was close to stirring up some white caps so we headed to a spot closer to the launch we call old reliable. Between these two stops we had enough catfish secured for a dinner that evening and were going to be able to fulfill a promise to my mother in law that we would deliver her some fresh frozen catfish later this week. We decided to check the shallow water bite.     

Here is the area we fished. Note the high water mark from last spring still on the cypress trees. Usually we fish where we can throw slip corks and punch bait right against that tree line that can be six feet deep in the spring. It's very shallow there now and we targeted 2.5' of water along a creek edge to the right in the photo that drops to 6' or so. We boated 8 fat channels, most full of eggs. With the mild weather might be an early spawn this year for all species.  

Cathy, who is on her second day of retirement boats a nice one. She always lays it by her foot to check the fish's length. I think her foot is a size 10 but she says that shoes in size 11 feel so good that she usually buys 12s and 12 inches is a good fillet sized catfish. 

There's a good look at Matt's slip cork rig. We like those Bass Pro Shops slip corks that come in a big cheap bag but any kind will work from a regular old salt water popping cork to the smaller foam Comal floats that I use to rig a light tackle shy bite set up. Slip corking is my favorite way to catch cats and in March they should really be in the shallows but I'll check for them if we see more mild winter days like this.   

We ended the day with 23 cats, a mix of blue and channel cat. 23 per trip was out 2021 average. We fished about 11:45 to 3pm. 

Later in the evening Anne joined us for grilled catfish, black eyed peas and corn bread. The New Year is off to a great start.