Trophy Catfish and a Bag of Fillets!

Joel and Ellie were in town from Wisconsin and joined us for their first James River experience. We had a cooler full of white perch ready to go and grabbed a few fresh gizzard shad to start the trip. We started by scanning a channel ledge and saw a few nice marks hanging on the ledge and towards the bottom of the ledge. We set the boat up and got some fresh bait in the water.

The bite was very quiet for the first hour or so but we saw fish continue to work their way under the boat so we waited them out. Eventually rods started to get nibbles but no fish were committing. We continued to wait. Finally a rod way down in the channel got crushed and folded over. We had a few big head shakes on the way in and the fish fought well above its weight class. After a spunky fight, Ellie had her new personal best blue catfish at 12 lbs! Congrats!

While we were taking photos of the fish, another rod took off and Joel was quick to snatch the rod up. We had utter chaos on the deck and both fish tangled up other lines but Joel was able to work the fish up the side of the boat and keep it out of the motor. A fast but violent fight ended with a trophy fish in the boat! This blue catfish weighed in at 34 lbs.

Welcome to the trophy club! That was a heck of a double up!

While we were getting ready to clean the smaller fish, another rod went down. Ellie was able to land another eater fish to take home.

We had one more small fish hit the deck but our guests decided it was too small to keep so we tossed it back. After all that chaos, they decided they experienced what they came for on the river and decided to head in early to find a place to eat.

Thanks for joining us on the water and we hope to take you out for antoher trip if you're ever in town again.