A trip to remember

We had Tina, Lisa, Renee, and Brad out for a trip to memorialize the passing of their father, an avid fisherman. Some of the siblings had fished with their father in the past, but nobody was too experienced with blue catfish. We started the morning off catching some fresh bait and got right to fishing.

The rods were going down consistently in our first spot as we caught a bunch of small blue catfish.

After catching four or five fish, we started to search for larger fish.

We started drifting down the river and picked up a few small fish, but a lot of the bigger marks we are passing over were not interested.

We switched tactics and started fishing on some structure and the bite had improved.

We wanted to get our group on some bigger fish so we started scanning with the electronics and found a pocket of fish holding tight to a hole with some structure nearby. Almost immediately after casting the rods out two rods went down, one of which was an 18 pound blue catfish. We barely had that fish out of the net when another rod went down and this fish fought hard. The harder we pulled on the rod, the more it started to dig for the bottom. Eventually, we lifted the fish up to the water surface and snuck a net underneath it. Our group was in shocked at how big this fish was, weighing in at 29 1/2 pounds. Congratulations on an awesome catch.

We hadn’t even let these two fish go when a third rod went down and started peeling drag. Another aggressive fight had started, but eventually we won. Everybody was all smiles when another huge catfish hit the deck, this time weighing in as a trophy fish by Virginia standards. Congratulations on a nice 31 pound blue catfish

While we were taking pictures with these fish, we noticed one rod was nowhere near where we casted it. We reeled the slack out of the line and pass it to our guest when we realize there was a fourth fish on. We could tell it wasn’t a huge fish, but it was awfully aggressive. After a short battle, the fish came to the boat and we saw a nice striped bass hit the deck. A quick picture with all four fish and then they all swam off healthy.

Time goes by quickly on the water and this half-day trip was coming to close. We put a few more fish in the 5 to 10 pound range on the deck before it was time to take our guest back to the dock.

Thanks for joining us on the river. We hope you had a good time. Come back and see us again soon.