Hey Guys,
Well the weekend before the derby I brought a freind of mine,(Jim) to prefish with me and make sure the 7 Channels I caught 14 days earlier wern't just a fluke. Jim had been stuck on 9 lbs for his biggest Channel for almost 20 years and was ready to land one of these monsters that I'm always showing him pitcures of.
Jim landed a Carp at 13lbs in the early evening. I then hooked into a Channel that ended up getting off after a few minutes. We were only fishing one pole half the time due too I did not want to beat up my spot to bad before the derby.
In between 9 and 10 PM I hooked a nice Channel that weighed out at 24.6 lbs after about a 10 minute fight. Jim could not beleive how big it was. He kept telling me that he figured the night would start off with a Cat in the teens and the fish would get bigger as the night went on. Wrong! I figured we would start off with a bang. I had it all planned that way. OK I'm just kidding! I don't think Jim stopped making coments about it's size until he hooked and landed his 21.5. Bam! No more 9lbs.
Later that night I landed a 18.5 Channel. First thing in the morning we took a little ride to the North side of the lake, I had not been over there since I was a kid. We fished the mouth of Rodman Slough for an hour (Boat wouldn't fit under the bridge) then headed home.
For not fishing real hard I was pleased with the size we landed. 3 Channels for a total of 64.5lbs
Now for the derby weekend I'll make this short and sweet. Thursday night hooked and landed a 19.5, 18.5 and a 16.7.
Friday night my brother-in-law Eric Mitchel hooked and landed a 21.4lb male Channel Cat, if it was a female it would have easily been pushing 27 or 28 lbs. It's head was almost 12inches wide. Then later that night I got a 17.6lber.
Saturday night the lake was worthless for fishing. I hate fishing the weekends, to many weekend warriors that have no boat manners. Anyways by the time we weighed these fish in Erics had lost alittle more than 1/2 a lb in weight and mine lost over a lb.
Over the last 4 weekends I've been out 3 times landed and released 14 Channel Cats weighing a total of 245 pounds, with an average weight of 17.5 pounds a fish.
Also derby weekend we caught and released 12 Carp with 3 going over 20lbs. most Carp I've ever caught on one trip, I usualy get maybe one or two a trip.
Click on
this link[/size] for a webpage with photos of Jim's and my fish on the weekend before the derby.
Happy Fishin,
Ken, aka araiderfreak
