Neighbor Catfish feast

My neighbor is making out great - I got two small channels last night - one was about a pound and other I had to weight to make sure it was not over 2 lb (we have a 2 lb limit for 'her fish' i.e. if it's over 2 lbs I clean it and put in freezer - but she got lucky it was 1 lb 15oz (checked twice cause first check said 2 lbs :)

Just looked at yoyo's on fishing pier - and put another 'neighbor fish' in the pen (looks to be about 1.5 lbs - just the size she likes (btw: she is 89 years old and loves the small fillets cause she eats small meals :)

Oh well maybe the turtles / gar will leave some bait on the trotline - I baited tonight - with bream (had 24 bream - so had 6 empty hooks and 4 magic bait)

Still cleaning catfish

I still catch plenty of little channel catfish for my next door neighbor - so I stay busy cleaning catfish.

Bream (bait) fishing has been slow some days - but managed to bait trotline one time this week.

The guy that bream fishes with me - for his limb lines - added more lines (up to 34 limb lines now) - and he sometimes gives me channel catfish since he only wants BIG Flathead catfish.

For example, as I type this I have a 5 lb 14oz Channel being put to sleep (bleeding out) - so I can put it in the freezer for my brothers visit in the fall (I have 36 packages in freezer - each 1 lb or slightly above (try to keep each package at 1 to 1.1 lb - meal size for my brother :)

Oh well got to get busy putting a couple more pounds in the freezer :)

Another flathead

I baited trotline last night - using mostly small bream. I got a big fish and a small fish this AM

One was about 10 lbs and other was about 2 lbs (haven't checked weight yet). One was a flathead catfish the other was a gar - I'll let you guess which one was which ?

I've had several small channel catfish on yoyo's this week - so my next door neighbor is 'eating good' (she loves the little channel cats - the fillets make a nice meal (supper for her)

23 lb Flathead Catfish

Got this on 23 lb flathead trotline - really put up a fight and I hurt my back getting it in boat. Plus I almost broke handle on net (repaired and ready to go again)

3.5 lb Flathead vacuum packed

I didn't catch this 3 lb 10 oz flathead - a nice limb line fisherman gave it to me - he likes bigger ones - plus he is busy crappie fishing

Another neighbor and his little girl got a couple of BIG crappie - it was the first crappie on a jig for the little girl - she was telling people that she got her first 'jig crappie' for her birthday party / fish fry they have once a year :)

Magic Bait pays off again

This is 5lber that kept me up last night - see previous post or read info at youtube.com/arkieprince

Cold 5 lb channel catfish

Actually it's me that is cold. I only baited 5 yoyo's and went to check them about 9PM - and only two baits were missing - and I almost froze - cause wind is 20mph+ and temperature about 40 - so I decided that I would not check yoyo's again until AM - but at 10:50PM I said - well I guess I'll look and just my luck - I saw one yoyo was going against that strong wind.

This time I put on two layers of clothes - lucky I did - cause it took 20 minutes in the gale force winds and temperature must be low thirty's

Well now I'm cold and wide awake - cause I got a 5 lb channel catfish (yep I took time to weight it) - nice size catfish for magic bait - usually expect 1-2 lb - sometimes 4 lb - but don't get a lot of 4+ (well I said same thing last year when I got an 8 lb channel catfish on magic bait - but this is new year - and biggest on magic bait so far this year. I was still surprised it was 5 lb - since it was yoyo on my fishing pier (1.5 ft water) and magic bait (3 cubes / chicken liver / chicken blood)

Well I typed this to unwind and warm up - time for bed (will be tough cleaning the catfish in the wind and cold temperatures tomorrow (more like February weather - instead of April :(

3.75lb flathead + 3.75lb channel + 2lb channel catfish

Magic bait / yoyo = 3.75 lb channel on fishing pier. Trotline = bream bait / 3.75 lb flathead + magic bait / 2 lb channel. Did not bait all 34 hooks on trotline - only caught 23 bream - and then had to use some that were very large - in fact the flathead stomach was about to burst cause it had swallowed a large bream whole - it's amazing how wide they can open their mouth cause the bream was appeared much bigger than the flatheads mouth ( I cut bream out of belly and compared to mouth - still was amazed that the 3.75 lb flathead ate a bream that most people would call a 'keeper'