Jennings Catfish Opener 5/24/19

[sasquatch]

 Made plans with Tom to fish Jennings for the first time in ages. Hell, its been awhile since we fished anywhere.

He texts me his plan to arrive before I get off work, so of course I expect him to send me pics of his fish as I drive over in traffic. Neither one happened. He lost one fish, and there was no traffic, so the night is off to a good start,

I call when I get to the lake and he picks me up. Usual discussion of the plan ends up with hitting the bread and butter spot before someone else gets it. Perfect.

We drop the spot lock to hold us in the wind and bust out the panfish gear. Fun to pass the time waiting for the cats to come out. I made a couple casts and then got a quick bobber down. First fish was a small bluegill. On the board. A few more casts and I get another. I could actually feel this one pulling.



That was it.

We decided to check out some other areas, dropped some catfish baits into some structure that has paid off before, but nothing.

Decision was made to hit the usual spot and ride it out. We soaked mackerel, meal worms and threw plastic for bass. Nothing.

Then the sun went down and we got hopeful. That didn;t get us any bites. It was slow. For us, not for the next boat, they got about 8 fish for three guys.

Finally, around 9, I get a huge bite. It pins my rod in the holder and starts pulling line. I mean like Wham! I start fighting the fish and I can feel the line rubbing something. Sticks probably. Then a pop and it feels clear for a moment then starts rybbing again. Damn. Fish is still on though so I keep at it. Then another pop, bigger this time, and Tom says oh sh!t,is it still on?

It was. Got it to the boat and its a beauty.





That was it for another hour. Then I get bit again. Hard. Fish pops off. I reel in ad find the hook was bent out and the tip like a shepards crook. Probabaly should have checked that. Toms rods were silent excepy for a couple bites. Nothing stuck for some reason.

I missed a couple bites and scored one more small cat.

To top off a slow night, we get to the ramp and a guy has a three limit stringer in his truck he could barely lift. Those three guys did better than we did by a long shot.

Threw my big one on the scale and it went just shy of 8 1/2 pounds.

[spideyjg]

Nice bar to set on the cat contest. Good size channel cat.

[Eric H]

Nice channel

[Latimeria]

Yeah, I was farmer Tom with the few bites I did get and my only real fish busted my line.  It was awesome seeing that tubby cat roll into the net though!  Great fishing with you and I'm glad we got out of the water when we did to miss that crazy ramp.

[Latimeria]

A couple of more pics.



8lbs 7oz



17" diameter



Roughly 28" long



Belly full of mackerel!



I wonder when/where all of that was from???  Not us for sure, but weird to see so much cut mack in there.

[sasquatch]

Thanks for the other pics. I was going to post them, but I'm enjoying my last ride on the free beer train.

All that Mack looks like he was sitting under a rental boat eating scraps as they threw the primo baits 20 yards away.

[vdisney]

Nice frigg'n kitty..................been ages since I've cat fished