Personal Best Blue Catfish
- Dan Szajta
- May 7
- 3 min read
Ryan and Braidyn visited us from Colorado while they were on vacation. They wanted to get on some blue catfish and have steady action all day. We started the morning off catching fresh bait in the gill net.
Our first fishing spot was a channel ledge with a steep drop off. We cast the rods out and they were getting taps right from when we set up. The sky let loose and it started to pour rain. The rain fired up the catfish and we started the morning off with a double up.

We set the rods back up and didn’t have to wait long before Braidyn had his new personal best catfish of about 12 pounds.

While we were taking pictures of that fish and another rod went down out in the channel and it was a much bigger fish. The fish used the current to its advantage and put up a monstruous fight. We worked the fish the surface, swept it up in the net and were rewarded with a gorgeous 28 pound blue catfish. This fish tied Ryan’s personal best. Congrats on the awesome catch.

When the tide came in, we moved on to dragging Alphaboardz in moderate depth water. The rods were getting tapped and we were marking giant school as bait, but no fish were committing.

We stayed patient and about a half hour into our drag, a rod bent over and sunk the planer board. The fish started to swim in circles and we had a reel fast to keep the line tight. Braidyn handled the rod like a champ, as he has no stranger to big fish, and continued to battle the fish all the way to the boat. The fish surface and we were met with a giant 35 pound blue catfish.

Congratulations on the trophy fish and welcome to the Goober Time trophy club.

We had one fish hit a line and start peeling drag, and we were heartbroken when it didn’t hook up. It was likely the biggest fish of the day. We continued to drag for about another 2 hours and kept picking up eater size blue catfish as we moved along.

We marked plenty of big fish, but couldn’t get them to eat so we moved out to the channel ledges and started to fish on anchor again. We marked a giant school of fish behind some structure and tossed our rods into the cluster of fish. Fish were munching on our baits as soon as they hit the water, but it took a while for the first fish to come in the boat. Another moderately size blue catfish around 12 pounds.

The spot continued to produce fish, but they were on the smaller side. We had a couple nice takedowns, but decided to move onto the other locations.

The bite started to die down towards the end of the trip so we started to throw big baits and swing for the fences. The fish were munching on these bats, but they weren’t big enough to get the whole bait in their mouth. Before we knew it, it was time to head to the dock and wrap up an awesome day on the water.
Throughout the course of the day, we caught it well over 20 fish, a trophy fish and one just a couple snacks away from being a trophy fish. Not too bad for fishing at the beginning of spawn.
Thanks for coming out. We hope you enjoyed your trip. Hope to see you on the water again soon.
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