I was fortunate enough to go chase some catfish last sunday. Seemed like everything was biting except cats. The inlet where I catch shad, had quite a few jig and minnow slingers, who were enjoying some pretty good action on wipers, white bass, walleye, and rough fish. The shad were so thick that I snagged about a dozen with just a 1/4 oz plastic curly tail jig.
After getting getting the shad on ice, my friend and I goofed off for awhile trying to catch a wiper or two. Then we made the rounds of all our favorite catfish holes over about a 40 miles stretch of Irrigation canal. No bites, nothing. At the last spot (our favorite) I got the Idea that it was still to cold for the cats to do any serious moving, so I went over to a hole I knew of that was out of the direct current, and littered with concrete rubble. It took only about five minutes to start getting a tap tap tap. Very tentative though. I kind of fell asleep in the sun for a few minutes, and when I awoke the rod was bent over slightly. So I picked it up to test for a fish and I had a really good one on. I leaned on him with all I had. In that area I have to get them in paralell to a huge mess of tangled rebar. I couldn't hardly move him, but I was slowly gaining ground on him until just as I was about to get the first glimpse of him, I felt the line go solid on some kind of snag. Then, pop it felt like the line broke. ^&^%%$#%$^&**^%$# ! I was pretty sad because he was huge and he would have been the first of the year. When I reeled in I still had my hook on the line. He must have just been hooked in the skin on his mouth, and when he got into the rebar the hook stopped on something and he kept going. Frustrating but still very exciting. I'll get him next trip.
