Fished Fayette today with Doc. Real good day...Ended up with 42 fish (20 sunfish, 21 bass & 1 catfish) Water temp ranged from 66 degrees to 73 degrees. Most sunfish were small with a few nice ones mixed in. They were caught on mostly worms & a few on Gulp Alive in smelt color. Most bass caught on Culprit worms & Tsunami swimbaits. We both lost 1 bass over 5 lbs on the ultra lite tackle while fishing for sunfish. Now for the "fight of a lifetime" fish story....We had just started fishing around 8-ish when I thought I was hung up in the rocks...we were at this point trying to locate some early bluegill. Started trying to get it loose when I detected a little movement...then a little more. Turned out to be a 18 lb yellow cat that I battled for what seemed like forever...keep in mind I was fishing for bluegill with an ultra lite rod & 4 lb test flourocarbon. Probably the most awesome fight in my 69 years...Thanks to Doc we managed to get it in "half" the net and roll the rest of his body over in the boat. Couldn't stop shaking for about a half an hour. Anyway, we fished from around 7:30 to 6:00 & had a heck of a good time....

Awesome post, Awesome fish, and a "Fight of a Lifetime"! Good job guys. Congratulations Steve on landing a BIG GREAT FIGHTING FISH on ultra light sunfish tackle. As we all say in the Bluegill Section. You never know what you are going to catch while chasing Bluegill!


Great Job!

Nice fish guys congrats on winning the fight of your lifetime

Congrats Mr. Steve and Doc on the catch and for a blast of catfish battle. BTW-did the cat see grease or live to exploit his battle with friends? ?

Great post and some solid fish. Good job guys especially on the Flathead fight. I also know all about loosing nice bass. Makes the next bass fight so much better.



Side Note: What did the Flathead bite on? Also winning that fight on 4 lb test line is totally AWESOME!

Thanks guys...The catfish was released to fight another day, but we did consider keeping it. It was caught on a 1" Gulp Alive minnow in the Smelt color. Rod was 5' 6" St Croix Legend Elite Panfish rod....(I think this may be the best rod ever made) A Pflueger President reel (the smallest one in the series) and Stren clear Flourocarbon 4 lb test.

What an awesome trip and great fight. Good job guys!

Great job guys.

I didn’t know Fayette had yellow cats. Looking at the TPW website, they were stocked in 1976. The year I graduated from high school. Very cool.

Jimmy

It was an awesome day on the water that started out with a bang with Steve's big cat. Amazing feat of fishing.
He did everything right and played him out. His tackle was tested to the max and it did the job. That St Croix
Elite rod was bent like a pretzel. Steve knew how much pressure he could put on that fish and not pop the line.
And the patience to wait it out.


One of the coves we fished in the afternoon had 4 or 5 osprey's in the trees. I had my camera with zoom telephoto
and got some shots of a couple of them.

Wow Doc ! Those Osprey pics turned out GREAT !

Oh baby, what a fun day. An 18 lb fish on 4 lb test is definitely an accomplishment, especially in timber. I wish I could have been there to watch you catch it. I bet you were sweating bullets worrying about losing it.

Barry...No timber where this bad boy was...just lots of rip rap rocks on the bottom. You should have seen my line when it was over. It was frayed beyond belief...how it didn't break was unbelievable. I have always used Stren & this is the reason why. It stays tough even when frayed & stressed.

I am really glad you got it in. That will be one you get to remember for a lifetime. I have lost a few I never got to see that haunt me to this day.

We had one of the most amazing sunrises ever coming into the lake area. I thought I would post a couple of shots.
It was glorius to behold.