Probably The Last April Fishing Report And Then We Start May...

Once again the shallow water catfish pattern held on today's fishing trip. Slip corks fished 4' with a drop to 9' nearby, a little sour maize for chum and JPigg's punch bait. Wind could have been a bit better as we fished across it instead of with it which would often put a bow on our line as the corks drifted over structure and there were many hook sets with slack line but I'm not complaining. There would have just been more cleaning. The total for the day was 31 and we threw back a lot of 14" and below fish. We spend two and a half hours fishing. I imagine we could have had a three man limit easy.  Photo is the fish Cathy caught on her first cast. 

Cathy's brother Matt landed this 4 pounder a couple of casts later. 

I caught several sho-nuff fat channels before I finally landed this blue from what someone referred to as the "bitch seat." Hey! My doc did a skin check and said I was looking pretty cooked so I sit in the shade while fishing. 

I think when everything was sorted out there was one more fat blue cat that did not make this group photo. Cathy named a couple of the biggests "Butterscotch and Mr. Lewis." We fried up a pile of fillets, frozen a few of these big girls for grilling later and ran the rest over to the Joseph House Hospice as we have occasionally done in the past so the residents and staff get a good fresh fish dinner.

By the way this has been my go to rig lately. It's a Lew's spincast reel on a pretty good rod that has had a tip broken off. I have not been as lucky as my wife with the 8 pounders and such to see how it fares in the big leagues but my big worry is that one of the grandkids prefers this rig and I don't know how we resolve this next time he's on the boat. I guess I'll use something else.