James River Catfish Bonanza: Trophy Blues, Flatheads, and Non-Stop Action!

Cody, Randy, Trey, and Tee joined us for a day on the James River.

We started the morning off collecting a bunch of fresh bait while a patch of heavy fog burned off.

It wasn't long before we were taking off down river.

We marked a giant fish and tried to drift past him without success. We went ahead of him and anchored up current from the mark and started to wait him out. After about 20 minutes a rod folded over but never hooked up. A couple more taps resulted in nothing then our luck changed. We had a pink hellcat rod fold over and start peelign drag. The tide was just about slack so the fish was able to run around where it wanted. We managed the fish well and got it under the boat. After a fet minutes, we fought it to the surface and had a beauty of a 1first fish of the morning with a 33 lb trophy blue catfish!

Welcome to the trophy club!

We continued to wait on the big mark and after another 30 minutes, it was time to move on. We reeled in most of the rods and as Captain Dan was reeling in one of the last rods, a fish started to toss around some big head shakes. He passed the rod off to Cody to fight the fish. It was a strange sitaution but made a lot more sense when we saw a nice flathead come to the surface. What a cool catch!

From there, we scanned the river a bit without seeing any marks that made us want to get rods out. Captain Dan decided to change tacitics and start dragging shallow mud flats. Almost immediately, we had fish nipping at our baits and had a violent planer board takedown. Tee grabbed the rod and fouhgt the fish in under 3 feet of water. It was thrashing at the surface and putting on a show. We snuck a net under the fish and were rewarded with a fish around the 15-20 lb mark.

We set the planer boards back out and continued to drag into a creek. After getting a few rods hung in an underwater tree, we worked our way back out and picked up another nice fish weighing in just under 10 lbs.

We covered this area pretty well and started to make our way up river. Our next spot was anchoring off the main channel on an underater shipwreck. We had marked a ton of fish in the wreck and the rods were getting tapped immediatley. After waiting them our for about 30 minutes, we moved on without catching any fish in this spot.

We made a big move up river and started to mark a ton of big fish tight to the bottom. We suspend drifted a few rods down the main channel ledge and picked up a bunch of eater size fish, which we cleaned and sent the guys home with to eat. None of the bigger marks were interested so when we cmoplted our drift, we moved on to a different stretch of river.

For the last hour of our trip, we pulled planer board on shallow sloping mud flats. Some boards were in water less than a foot deep while others were in 15-20 ft of water. We marked a ton of big fish sitting in 10 feet of water but none of them were interested in getting their picture taken. We caught another couple small fish before it was time to head back to the dock.

Thanks for joining us on the river! Can't wait for the next trip!

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Goober Time Guide Service offers premier guided fishing experiences throughout the James River and key bodies of water across Central Virginia. We specialize in multi-species excursions, targeting trophy Blue Catfish, Flathead Catfish, Smallmouth Bass, Striped Bass, and Crappie.

Our versatile fleet includes a fully-equipped main vessel for full-group charters, as well as specialized kayaks, paddleboards, and whitewater rafts to access remote waters and low-pressure fisheries. Furthermore, we offer exclusive light-lining charter trips for elite anglers seeking the ultimate technical challenge and potential record-breaking catches.

Contact us to consult on your group’s goals, and we will expertly design a tailored fishing adventure to exceed your expectations.

Captain Dan Szajta

USCG Master Charter Captain

www.goobertimeguideservice.com/book-online

804-592-0456