Had work and family stuff yesterday, but had plans to fish this morning, most of the day. Plan was to look for some of those big Blue Cats. Well, fog was BAD this morning... could not see 50 yards and with wife and son with me, just waited until we could see to be safer... that led to leaving the dock about 11 am. Knew I had to quit about 3, due to other duties.

Luckily I found bait pretty quick, and while it was not the first throw, I did get lucky with one of those 1 throw and more bait than I needed for the day throws!

With NO wind, had to use the trolling motor to power drift. Water temps were 52 - 54. Had a couple of places I wanted to try, that I had never fished. Found a lot of bait, but no fish.

Moved to another spot I have caught blue catfish before. Had 4 rods out, slow power drifting. 1 with a nice big 8-9" shad nose hooked, tail cut off. Other baits were smaller. 10 minutes into the drift, rod with big bait got hit hard. Fish on... Good fight! I thought I finally might have something big enough for a picture. Well, I did end up taking pictures, but not of the big Blue Cats I was looking for...

26", 6.2 lb hybrid... Nice fight and biggest hybrid I have caught on CC.

45 minutes and couple of small eater blues later, another big bait gets hit. Hard. Fish on. Good fight. Yep, you guessed it. 25", 6.1 lb hybrid.

Both fish were hooked pretty deep. They slammed the baits. So both went in the cooler. Will be on the grill in the next few days.

QUESTION: I don't know a lot about hybrids, other than they are great fighters, and are pretty good to eat. Both of these fish were full of eggs... Not ready to drop, but nice big egg packs in both fish. Do the hybrids spawn and reproduce in CC? When do they spawn? Should have taken pictures of the eggs I guess, but didn't really think about it until I was done cleaning them. Here is a picture of the fish.


Was a good day with the family, even if I did not find the big blues...

Take care all. Merry Christmas!
Ken

They spawn but are sterile and so have to be re-stocked. NICE HYBRIDS!!!!

They don't reproduce. But they still to their thing.

Nice fish caught a 5lb on Palestine last summer while crappie fishing..