Catfish are more fun than bass.

Every now and then, you have one of those days where you bounce baits right on the fishes' heads all day long, and they just won't bite. But even then, sometimes the fish story has a happy ending. This is one of them... Meet my little buddy Liam. He came fishing today with his grandfather and Carson, his older cousin. Carson put an eater cat in the boat right off the bat and it looked like we might have a good day. And then we fished. And fished. And fished. Not even a bite. Liam never gave up. He helped reel in rods when we moved, took off bait and kept an eye on the planers, hour after hour. He never complained, but as the day went on, it was clear he was getting discouraged. About 1 pm, we called an audible and set up to make one last drift across a mussel bed. I asked Liam what we should put on the hook as we baited the final rods. He suggested the piece of cut bait I had in my hand and then ALSO adding a cut gizzard shad head on the same hook. We called it the "Liam Special" bait . And we pitched it out and drug it for a half hour. No joy. We finally called it a disappointing day. The rod with the Liam Special bait was the last to come in, and as his grandfather David started to reel it it, he said "I think there's a fish on here!" Liam was off like a shot to grab the rod and started cranking it in like a pro, big grin on his face. He was beside himself when the fish hit the net and came over the side of the boat. Sometimes it's not always about putting 20 fish in the boat. On this day, a single blue cat in the low teens at the last possible moment made all the difference to a fisherkid who was small enough he had to have help to hoist it up for a picture. And now I have a new bait and a great story about Liam, the kid who refused to give up on fishing, even on an insanely slow day..

While the cats are taking their sweet time coming off the spawn, had a chance to take out Ronald, Iris and Melissa for a meat hunt fishing trip. We were targeting channel cats and spotted bass for a fish fry, but instead it turned into a non stop hybrid striperpalooza. Well over 50 hybrids for the day, plus a cooler full of channel cats, spots and jumbo white perch. Melissa got so determined to catch a keeper hybrid (20+ inches) that we left biting fish for another area that has been holding some slightly bigger hybrids (and more channel cats), and the first bait drop produced a 22 inch bruiser. I had been telling her all morning how hard the bigger fish fought, and she nearly had a heart attack when the big boy bent the rod tip down into into the water.. She added a second 22 incher, and then 11 year old Iris latched onto a 23 inch drag screamer that she handled like a pro. Big hybrids on ultralight tackle are unbelievably fun to catch! Took me an hour to filet out all the fish for them, got a hook in my thumb and all sorts of cuts and scrapes from the gills and tooth pads, but wouldn't trade an outing like this for anything. What a great day of fishing. We're probably about three weeks from the height of the suspended cat season, which is by far the most fun time of the year to down line for good sized catfish. Holler if you want to go!

We missed the best part of the morning bite, but once Reggie got on the boat (after driving nearly two hours from working overnight) we made up for it quickly. First couple of drifts produced a screaming drag puller 27.5 pound blue cat, followed by a 17 pounder and a pair in the low teens. We added white perch, spotted bass, channel cat and crappie to the catch, After a couple hours of fishing, the wind changed direction and started white capping, which slowed the bite way down. Still sent Reggie home with a bag of filets for a fish fry that evening (probably after a short nap, I suspect.)