Max and Patrick joined us for a joint birthday party. These youngsters are eager to learn more about the James River and we packed as much info as we could into a half day trip. We launched the boat and took off to catch some fresh bait, explaining the importance of having the freshest bait possible on the James River.
It took a couple tosses of the cast net and one set of the gill net and we had all the bait we needed for the next few hours of fishing. We also caught a couple nice gar in the cast net, took a few photos, and tossed them back.
We showed the guys how to scan the water with the sonar, what fish looked like, and what bait looked like. We found a promising ledge and anchored up. After chopping up some gizzard shad, we baited up the hooks and cast out 8 Hellcat rods.
Now it was time to sit and wait. Rods started getting tapped right from the jump. We had a few rods load up really nice and the guys reeled down on them, but the fish didn’t hook up. It was proving to be a very finicky bite, with the fish nibbling on the ends of the bait.
We downsized a few baits as the outgoing tide started to pick up a little. Rods continued getting taps and eventually a rod started to slowly bend over and kept on going. Patrick jumped up, reeled down on it a few times and the fight was on. The fish ran from side to side and took us across the rod rack a few times until Patrick was able to persuade it to settle on the starboard side of the boat. We moved some rods over and waited patiently with the net. The fish came to the boat but stayed on the bottom, 40 feet deep. Now it was a vertical fight and the fish got angry. It fought Patrick hard but eventually came up after pulling drag a few times.
We scooped the fish up in the net and lifted it over the rail. It took a lot of patience but Patrick was rewarded with a new personal best blue catfish, weighing in at 26 pounds! Just a few snacks away from becoming a trophy fish.
We waited on anchor for a bit longer and the action was much of the same. Lots of little taps, without many fish committing and running with the bait.
At this point, we had about an hour left in the trip and a 25 minute run back to the boat ramp. We scanned another area, which was holding a ton of bait but we didn’t mark many fish. With the sun starting to pump out some heat and the clouds clearing, we decided to look shallow. We found a ton of action but couldn’t quite get to it as the wind had blown a ton of water out of the river and the water was way too shallow. We got as close as we could and started dragging baits, showing the guys how the planer boards work. As we were dragging, we started to clean up a bunch of smaller fish from earlier in the trip.
Patrick wanted to try to clean some fish and we showed him how to get all the meat off the side of a fish and trim up the fillets.
Time flies by on the water and before we knew it, 4 hours had passed and it was time to head in. We sent the guys on their way with a bag of fillets and look forward to seeing them on the next trip!
Gear We Trust:
Rods from Catch the Fever (Discount code GOOBER10 for 10% off)
Line from Slime Line (Discount code GOOBER10 for 10% off)
Terminal Tackle from Mid Atlantic Catfish Co (Discount code Goober15 for 15% off)
Planer Boards from AlphaBoardz (Discount code GOOBER10 for 10% off)
Reels from Shimano https://amzn.to/49Xxyq7
Anchors from Never Lost Anchors (Discount code GOOBER5 for 5% off)
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