I headed out to the lake today to try my luck. The water has seriously risen since I was last out there which is great, but it presented its own set of problems. Most of the areas with good depth for wading are choked with flooded vegetation, and this made the fishing difficult. There were fish everywhere though.





I started catching a few fish here and there. The catfish seemed really active near the flooded vegetation.





These guys were all over:





As I was wading along I saw a large log right up against some weeds. I thought, "That log is kind of the shape of a catfish..." Then it moved. I made a cast and the fly landed about a foot from its nose. The fish turned away and started slowly heading off and I thought I had blown it. I cast one more time and my line came tight. I set and the fish just kind of lazily swam out to deeper water, pulling off drag slowly as he went. I was fishing with a 5wt and 3X and I could not slow him down. Finally though he turned back towards me. He continued to slowly swim around as I tried to tire him out. He maybe made two decent runs but really didn't fight all that much, mostly just pulling hard and slow. I started looking around to figure out how I was going to land this thing. There was no real bank where I was just a lot of flooded vegetation. I pulled him through some of this to try to get him shallower and the line broke! He just kind of sat there so I scooped him up with both arms and carried him to a place where I could snap a few photos.







I carried him back to deeper water and revived him for a while and he swam off. I really don't have any idea how much he weighed but certainly the biggest cat fish I've ever caught and probably one of the biggest fish I've ever caught on the fly!

That is a big fish. Way to go!
Looks like you had a good day. I figured the lake would be up because all the creeks hear in Gainesville were full Thursday.

WOW! Just WOW!

That cat has to be water body state record on fly.

I wonder what species of cat that is- he's very dark black

Les

Great catch, I just checked and that is a lake record for RR. I thought it could be a state record but some caught a 40+

Les that is a flathead. They get very large.

I have cast to a few of them, one ate and quickly broke me off that's awesome

Outstanding. What a memory!

Thanks fellas. Here are a few clips of me reviving and releasing the fish.

That vegetation is setting up some duck hunters for a good teal season in a few weeks

I have seen some really big cats on the flats, especially in the spring when the water is high, but never had any luck getting one to take a fly. The little ones jump on it with reckless abandon but the big ones always seemed to know something was up. Glad to see you got one. Good work.

Nice fish man! I'm hoping that I can get up to Ray Roberts before summer is over so I can get some carp action

THAT'S AWESOME, WAY TO GO

That is great catch.