First big Flathead catfish of the year!

Michael and Brady came out for a return trip on the James River. We started the night looking for Hickory shad. We spotted a lot on the livescope but didn’t hook into any so we moved spots. We scanned the river as we drifted and found a pocket of Hickory shad. Within a half hour we caught 4 and a bonus striper.

With some prime bait in the cooler, we turned our sights to catfish and ran a little bit down river to start drifting. We put six rods suspended about a foot off the bottom and the rods started getting hit immediately. We suspected it was a lot of small fish because they weren’t hooking up, but we were soon proved wrong when a really finicky  Rod decided to finally fold it over into the water. Brady was first to grab the rod and it didn’t look like much of a fish until it was straight under the boat. As soon as Brady started, lifting the fish towards the boat it started to pull drag and run towards the channel. After a solid minute long fight, the fish came to the surface and we netted the biggest flat head of the year weighing 21 pounds and measuring 37 inches. This was Brady’s first ever catfish What a way to start your catfish career.

We continued to drift with a lot of small hits, and about a half hour later another rod went down violently. This fish was very spunky and fought all the way to the boat. After we snuck a net under it, we pulled it over the rail and found ourselves face-to-face with a 20 pound blue catfish. 

The drifting bite died off as darkness set in and with the tide rising we decided to change tactics so we pulled all the rods in and ran to a new spot. As soon as we got rods F in the water, the action was on and we had nonstop takedowns for the next two hours. We lost track of how many fish we caught, but it was well over a dozen everything from two pounders to 20 pounders.

The night ended without any monster fish, but we had a ton of action and everybody had a great time.

The Italian sausages with peppers were a big hit as well and really hit the spot on a chilly evening.

Thanks for joining us on the water! Can’t wait for the next trip!