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First Boat Trip Of 2005

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First Boat Trip of 2005

Met my brother at the boat ramp around 11 in the morning. It

was the first time he got his boat

in the water this season. I was very surprised by how clear

the river was compared to the week

before. When we powered away from the ramp we started

planning where to start fishing. It was

then I noticed the fish finder was not in the boat. That

meant we had to fish spots we knew

about and hoped the fish would be there. I had intended to

use the fish finder to pinpoint

the fish to increase our odds of landing more fish than

usual for us.

My brother got all 6 rods baited up as we motored to the

fist spot. He used large chunks of

frozen skipjack as bait on all the rods. He has an array of

6 rod holders that allows a wide

area to be fished at the same time. We settled back once all

the lines were in the water at our

first stop. One of my brother’s rods got a good bite. The

fish hit it hard some more. My

brother did not get very concerned; he said he would just

let the fish hook himself. The rod

did not move any after he said that. We started to wind in

our lines to move to our next spot.

He picked up the rod that had the bite that is when he

realized the fish was still on the line.

When he got it to the top of the water he saw the catfish

had wrapped the line around its

body. There was no way it could use the tail section of its

body at all to swim off with the

line. My brother had to cut the line so the fish could be

free of the mess so he could take a

couple pictures. The Channel cat was in the 6 pound range

and good shape as he was returned to

the Licking River.

We checked out a number of other holes we knew about as we

traveled north on the river.

Without the fish finder we were just depending on the fish

to be in the spots they had been

weeks before. The fish did not co-operate with that plan so

we headed out into the Ohio River.

We had our lines in 3 different places with NO bites. Last

spot was a deep spot that I have

fished a lot of times in the past. The 30 feet deep area was

hard to hold the boat with the

faster current on the Ohio River. Once we got the boat

squared away and lines in the water we

relaxed. One of my brother’s rods got hit hard. He did not

get up to get the rod. By this

time the line was started to head out into the middle of the

river. I told him to get it before

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the fish crossed up all the other rods. He did have the fish

for about 4 cranks of the reel

then the line went limp. That cat had cleaned off all the

bait. A short time after that I got a bite when I got my

line in the bait was all chewed up. I put

on a smaller piece of bait and cast it back to the same

general area. The rod started moving

with the bite. I picked it up and when he had the line tight

I set the hook. He was a small

blue cat around 3 pounds. He was easy to get into the boat

no need of a dip net. Took two

photos and he was swimming back to his home.

It was getting time for us to head on home as well. We

pulled up our anchors and got the

lines back in the boat. The 15 minute run back up the

Licking got us back to the ramp. The

shadows were getting long and the air was on the cold side

as the boat was on the trailer. We

were both ready to head back to a warm home after the day of

fresh air. We will be sure to have

our fish finder to locate the fish next time we use his

boat. Tight lines to all.

nlcatfish@fuse.net webmaster for

Cincinnati Catfishing www.cincinnaticatfishing.com AND

SHOP WITHOUT DROPPING

www.cincinnaticatfishing.com/Shop1.html

Over700Bargings4YOU www.bargins4tightbudgets.com

About the Author

Have been catfishing around the Downtown Cincinnati area of the Ohio River for over 40 years. Gone catfishing at Lockport 5 times over the past 10 years. It is the greastest place to catch lots of huge CHANNEL catsfish in North America!!