This trophy fish was a nice surprise

Dan, Aidan and Sienna came out for a morning trip on the James river. We started the morning fishing a channel ledge, throwing some rod deep and rods shallow. We sat on anchor for about 35 minutes with only one tap, shallow, and one tab deep. No fish hooked up, so we moved onto dragging baits in the shallow area.

We saw a lot of fish on the side skin and committed to dragging for the next hour and a half. A couple promising hits early never turned into fish, but we were soon rewarded with a small blue catfish for the livewell.

We continue to drag you a deeper section of this area, and the boat started to turn on. One of our planter board started to act really funny so we reel it in and we’re surprised to find a 41.75 inch trophy gar on the other end of the line. What a catch!

While we were measuring that fish, another rod went down in sunk planer board immediately. Aiden fought the fish to the boat. We were able to sneak a nut under it after unclipping the planer board and we were rewarded with a nice fat 24 1/2 pound blue catfish.

We continued to drag for a little bit and Sienna was able to reel in the next fish. This fish also came on a planer board and turned out to be a nice 15 pound blue catfish.

We continued to drag planer boards and found a few more eater size catfish before moving on to new tactics.

The bite started to slow down in the heat of the day. We tried to drift some channel ledges but didn’t catch any of the fish were marked. We moved to a new section of the river and it took a while before we contracted with a fish but it was worth the wait. A rod was slammed and folded over, pulling drag out. Dan reeled the fish in and it continued to fight tough, pulling drag a few more times. Once we needed the fish, it weighed in right around 25 lbs and was almost a trophy fish by length at 37.75 in.

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