Trophy Blue Catfish on Live Bait

Nakia booked a double birthday trip and brought Boaz, Nate and Mika along for the trip. We hit the river first thing in the morning and started fishing a channel ledge with live and cut bait while the gill net soaked. The gill net did not catch anything but we caught a small blue catfish to get the morning started.

We sat a while longer and as we were reeling up the rods, we found a tiny bliue catfish on the line. What a surprise!

We transitinoed over to drifting channel ledges with live and cut bait, suspending 4 rods. We marked plenty of bgi catfish holding tight to the bottom but they were not interested in our cut or live bait.

We moved to a new stretch of river and changed our tactics a little. We suspended 2 rods with live bait and started dragging 2 rods out the back of the boat with santee cooper rigs and cut bait. We passed over a few packs of large catfish but they were still not interested. As we were finishing up this streth of river, we hooked into a nice blue catfish.

We moved to another new stretch of river and continued the same tactics. Thsi time we caught another eater size catfish and the large fish we marked were not intersted. Captain It was frustrating marking so maany large fish, all of which were uniterested so we changed up tactics to finish up the trip. Captain Dan scanned some channel ledges and found some fish hanging tight to an underwater sheer rock wall with boulders on the bottom. We set the boat up so we could fish on anchor and target the channel ledges and a cut in the bank. With only a few mintues left in the trip, a rod folded over and started peeling drag. Nate grabbed the rod and fought the fish like a professional. The fish was using the current to it's advantage and kept going on big runs. We knew we had the largest fish of the day. We finally swung the fish to the side of the boat and snuck a net under it. Our guests were shocked to see a trophy blue catfish come over the gunnel, weighing in at just under 34 lbs! What a fun way to end the trip!

Welcome to the trophy club!

Thanks for joining us on the water! Come back and see us again sometime soon!