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Author:
BigEd
Date:
Jul 02, 2012
Subject:
Caught a Great White, catfish that is
Message:
Saturday morning I was on Zoar around 6:30am fishing one of the coves and targeting a couple of fallen trees staying closer to shore and limiting depths to about 10'. I started tossing wacky rigged worms letting them fall between the underwater limbs and bouncing 3" tubes from shore to under the boat with only small fish being caught. I started snagging up real bad so I decided to drift out a little further to about 14' of water. I then opened up a new bag of Kietech 5" Shad Impacts in AYU color. I remember buying them and the owner of Newtown Bait & Tackle asked me if I liked them better than the swing impacts, said I never tried them so I will give them a shot. I was a little concerned because they don't have nearly the tail action like the swings do and have a straight tail instead of a swim tail design. I put one on an Owner twistlock and checked the action over the side of the boat. There things are pretty awesome, when they fall they stay horizontal and just shimmy side to side like a fish having an epileptic fit. When you twitch it they dart smoothly side to side and just stop and fall again. Now I was ready for ole bucket mouth. I tossed it out and let it sink for a minute and started giving it some gentle twitches, letting it fall after each. I retrieved about 10' of line and give a twitch only to have the line stop. I give a tug and pause...nothing. I'm thinking there goes another hook offered to the log gods. All of a sudden the drag starts screaming and the pole bends over like crazy. I have no idea what this is since there is no head shaking or charge to the surface run, just pulling and resistance. I even thought it might be a large turtle. No way was I going to just muscle it up on 6 lb line. About 3 minutes later I am able to make out it was a huge white catfish. Finally get it to the surface and couldn't figure out how to get it out of the water since I didn't have a net. I let it run a couple of times to tire it out some more and grab the pliers to get the hook out. I tried grabbing it around the head but no way, I couldn't get my hand over the top of it and wasn't going to risk getting stung by the pectoral fins/spines. While it was horizontal next to the boat I measured it against my arm for reference, knuckles to elbow and that only reaches the middle of the anal fin on this thing. This was easily a 22"-24" fish! I never expected that and it totally caught me off gaurd. I think the squid scent and wounded fish action of the Kietech certainly played a role in this catch. I never really targeted catfish but I'll tell you what, after that I can assure you I'll be dropping more stinky baits onto the bottom every once in a while! Whew! I'm still excited.
Author:
NorthEastFisherman
Date:
Jul 02, 2012
Message:
Awesome!!! I never wouldve even thought there were catfish in zoar. Did you take a picture?
Author:
jjbassfishn
Date:
Jul 02, 2012
Message:
I second a picture, Never seen one myself. Sounds like a fun fight.
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