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.