Phillip and David joined us on the water for a full day of fishing. The guys had big plans for the day taking advantage of our hellcat giveaway. They wanted to catch some eater fish to take home and also a trophy fish so they could win a rod.
We showed the guys how we use livescope to catch bait with the cast net while we set the gill net out and let that work its magic. We had a couple pieces of bait to start fishing with and decide to move onto our first fishing location.
We set the gill net in our new location and put the Alphaboardz in the water to get our fishing started. We spent an hour dragging baits while the gill net soaked and didn’t have much luck. We saw a bunch of fish on the graph, large and small, and kept our fingers crossed while we were dragging. We did notice a lot of the larger marks were buried down in the mud so we knew we’d have to get lucky for a rod to go down. We had a couple small hits, but nothing hooked up so it was time to pull in the gill net and move onto new tactics.
The gill net had all the bait we needed for the day, so we moved on to hopping spots on anchor. We are looking for good spots to set up on and just couldn’t mark fish no matter how much we tried. Stan and I picked our brains and kept coming up with new spots and new locations but nothing looked worth throwing out an anchor. We continue to cruise the river for about an hour, checking in on some of our favorite locations based on the conditions.
We finally found a spot holding bait and we knew there would be fish nearby so we threw out the anchor and got rods out. It didn’t take long before the rod started going down. We had a monster takedown that resulted in a 26 pound fish coming to the boat.
Soon after that another rod went down and the battle was on. David jumped on the rod and started to fight the fish who was pulling drag relentlessly. He battled the fish until he was right under the boat, and the fight was vertical. After wearing out the fish we saw the fish release its air bladder and start to rise to the surface. As the fish surfaced we saw monstrous head shakes, and we knew this was going to be a good fish. The fish ran us around the rod rack a little bit, but we were able to get it in the net and into the boat. This fish was our biggest fish of the day at 48 pounds.
Since the guys booked an eight hour trip and they just caught a trophy fish, they knew they were going home with a hellcat rod.
We swung by the dock to pick up some lunch to grill on the boat. We headed back to our spot to set up the grill and get the rods back out. We were able to finish our lunch before the rods started going down again. The first fish we caught was a special one being our first flathead of the year. It was small, but it’s a sign spring is near when these fish start showing up.
We caught a couple eater size fish before a rod got crushed. This fight was very similar to the last big fish so we were getting excited as the fish was reeled closer to the boat. After a good fight, David was able to wear the fish out and lead him straight into the net. It was another trophy fish for David at 28 pounds but 38 inches which made it a trophy fish. David was able to join the trophy club twice today.
After we wore out the spot, we headed back towards the ramp and fished a few locations before the trip was up. The spots had a lot of activity, but it was mostly dink taps and nothing ever hooked up.
We brought the guys back to the ramp and it was finally time to get off the water. The wind was howling, but it was an absolutely gorgeous nearly 70° day. We can’t wait for the spring bite to really fire up once this river temperature goes up a little bit more but it’s well on its way. Thanks for joining us on the water guys. Can’t wait for the next trip.
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