Snake River kitties

My daughter and I went cat fishing last week one day after work.  I had bought a few heavy duty rods a while back and it was high time we started using them.  I've caught a few catfish before, but never on purpose, one was while I was bluegill fishing and the other time was when I was ice fishing for perch.

When we got to the spot I had scouted there was no one else there. We got our catfish poles set up, then I spent some time casting out for bass.  I never did end up getting a bite which was strange.  I also wasn't getting any action on the catfish rigs so I decided to reel them in and check the bait.  Of course the first one I reel in ends up getting snagged and I had to break the line and rig it back up again.  I moved further down shore and cast it back out.  I then checked the other pole and there was still bait on it.  I wasn't sure exactly how the catfish would bite since I had never intentionally fished for them...this is one reason I checked the bait, to make sure they weren't just eating it off the hook.

After about a half hour I started getting some hits on the pole I had re-tasked further down shore.  It was short tugs that the fish was doing so I waited till it started tugging away from me and I set the hook (slowly pulling back towards myself) and started reeling it in without giving any slack.  My daughter ran to get the net as we were on a pretty steep bank with a couple feet of drop off.  She had to lay on the ground with the net to reach the cat when I brought it in.  When I finally got it on shore I could see that it was a nice one.  We were pretty happy about the whole ordeal as I was started to get worried that we were gonna end up getting skunked.

We ended up staying till 11pm and catching three in total which I thought was doing ok considering it was my fist time. These cats had some nice fillets on them, and I can't wait to try them out the next time we have a fish fry.

My daughter and I had a great time though and we can't wait to get back out and try again.

Local ponds

With gas prices starting to get closer and closer to $4/gal. it's time to start thinking of some local places to wet some lines.  I started this weekend by going to the local pond in the town I live in, more commonly known as Duff Lane Pond.  The IDFG stocks it with trout but usually they don't last too long through the hot summer as the pond isn't very deep.  Either do the bluegill for that matter as I found a lot of them dead along the shoreline already, and summer hasn't even started yet.  Trout or bluegills didn't really interest me anyways, what did interest me was the likelihood of their being some small mouth in there.  I'll point out that I ended up going two separate days this last weekend, and taking two separate kids with me on each occasion.  The first evening I went I was able to land a few smallies.  Then the second time I only managed to land one, but I was surprised at how big it was, especially coming from this little pond.  They were few and far between, but they were decent sized, and put up a good fight.

I'm sure there are quite a few ponds around some of these smaller towns that hold some good fishing, and as the weeks go on, and time permits I'll be getting out and exploring them.  A person doesn't have to spend a fortune to have a good time...just take a kid fishing, and you'll have all the reward you'll ever need.