Met up with my buddy Brook Landis last evening for some catfishing on the Susquehanna River. We had been trying to get our schedules coordinated for some time and last night things finally worked out.Brook goes to my church and is an avid angler. In recent years he has been experimenting with various British bait techniques and applying what he has learned to American angling. His recent book in fact is American Coarse Angling: Modern Baitfishing Tactics for the Overlooked Species.
We arrived at the river around 7:45 and made our way to Brook's secret spot. All I can say is that it is between the Maryland and New York borders. Upon arriving, the water was calm and there was an eerie hush over the banks. We rigged up, and he showed me how to assemble my tackle for very quick strike detection. Bait for the evening was shrimp. We cast out into the current and didn't have to wait too long until Mr. Cat found our "treacherous bait." About the time the first strikes started, life on the river exploded in conjunction with the white mayfly hatch. Mayflies were everywhere and everything was feeding on them. From this point on, we pretty much had non-stop action for the next two hours.
All in all, we landed around 15 nice catfish between 20 and 30 inches. Most of them were channel cats, but Brook also landed a huge flathead catfish. This trout fisherman was suitably impressed with the pursuit of overlooked species and plans on taking his boys to the river soon to pursue the same.
4 comments:
please tell me you kept them?!?! Off to go take my centrum silver and go tryout for a Levitra ad....mwahahaha
They're our gift to another angler...
Fish, very interesting reading about the 'coarse fishing'. As a child I devoured old English books about the art of coarse fishing; many of them dealt in great detail with various methods of baiting and hook placement etc. for large (and elusive!) carp which lived in places such as Zeekoeivlei near Cape Town. We spent a couple of weeks near there one summer when I was just a little lad and I spent HOURS trying to catch a large carp. No luck then but later in my life I caught many. Also some massive catfish (known as barbel in Africa) in the Vaal River in (then) Transvaal Province of South Africa, when I was in college. Have since graduated to (mostly) off-shore fishing but I need to get back to my roots. Thanks for bringing back some nice memories. Great to hear that your kids are taking to this as well.
Holy carp! I think I have that book! Very cool...
ps--you have way too many catfish in your life...
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