Trophy Catfish on First James River Trip

Lou, Kerry, Anthony, Nicholas, Layla, and Lennon joined us for their first trip fishing the James River. They wanted to catch some catfish, hoping for a mix between eaters and trophy fish. We set off down river and got right on some action with a small blue catfish being the first fish in the boat.

We lost a few other small fish and one nice fish at our first anchor. We decided to move to deeper water and saw some great marks on the sonar. We weren't anchored for 20 minutes when a rod folded over. We took our time getting the fish to the boat and when the fish was right under the boat, the fight was on. A few drag pulling runs, some big head shakes, and a big game of tug of war took up the next few minutes. We had to fight the current and this huge fish, which was no easy task. We tired out the fish and it came to the surface. A quick scoop of the net and we had a trophy fish in the boat. This fish weighed in at 34 lbs on our certified scales.

Welcome to the trophy club!

The bite died down as we neared a tide shift, so we checked out another location that had been holding fish. We caught another eater-size fish with no other bites.

That was quickly followed up with another fish about the same size.

We wanted to keep working this stretch of river but the direction and strength of the wind, combined with the impending tide change, didn't give us an option other than to head back up river.

We stopped by some bridge pilings and caught another small fish on a 30 minute anchor.

We had a little bit of time left int he trip and conditions were getting tough. We ran up the Appomattox river to fish a couple holes. We missed one good takedown in our first spot then struck out on the next location. Before we knew it, time was up and it was time to head back to the ramp.

Thanks for joining us on the river!