Keep this in mind for next spring at Cedar Creek Lake...
In the meantime, the summertime redfish bite at Fairfield is hot. After that, it's trophy blue cat fishing in the fall and winter. Visit jackieblue's website for more: http://jackiekennedyfishingguide.com/

Special thanks to Curtis Frisbie of the Dallas Woods and Waters Club http://www.dwwcc.org/ for the article below, published in the June 2009 newsletter.

Looking for Ole� Whiskers

By Curtis L. Frisbie, Jr.

I have caught quite a few whiskered catfish during my many days of fishing. But, they were always the unwanted by-product of my fishing for some other fish. Once caught I then had to deal with the unpleasant task of getting that naked, slippery fish off my hook without getting my hand stabbed by the spine in its dorsal fin. I could never understand the fact that people went to lakes intentionally looking for cats! And, I had seen and smelled the stinkbait used by those obviously delusional people masquerading as fisherman. Nasty is the only apt description, and made even worse by the fact that the bait sprays back in the boat when given a violent cast towards a favorite fishing spot, spraying the boat and the fisherman with smells that won�t come off until the third shower and hard scrubbing with lye soap.

But, here I was, on Cedar Creek Lake with Jackie Kennedy, inimitable catfish fishing guide, and two friends, Dennis Connally and James Florez, wondering about my own delusional character since we were actually looking to catch blue catfish. I was inappropriately dressed in shorts, sandals, and a shirt with a light polar fleece overshirt since the weather forecast from the day before predicted a sunny 79 degrees. That weather forecaster should have been fired. When we arrived at the Sandy Shores launch in Gun Barrel City at 7 AM the skies were heavily overcast and grey, and the temperature could not have been above 50 degrees. I had no other clothes to put on and just looked on enviously as Jackie, Dennis and James put on coats, warm hats, and long pants as Jackie�s 22� Xpress, center console boat headed into the heavy wind and whitecapped waves making the temperature seem even colder.

Jackie guided us to a spot where the wind was pushing the waves ashore. His theory was that the baitfish would be pushed toward shore and the cats would be there waiting for them. We anchored off the bank about 40 yards, baited up with dead shad and a weight to keep them down, and casted toward shore. We did this repeatedly until we had eight rods in place around one side of the boat. Then we waited. We did not have long to wait until the pole in front of Dennis bent over. In a few minutes, we had the first of the blues in the boat and, being the first fish in, captured on film. This pattern repeated itself over and over again as two to five pound blues continually jumped into our boat and made their way to the cooler.

One rod in front of me bent over significantly more than the others and I grabbed it and set the hook. This one had some heft to him and he clearly did not like the thought of getting close to our boat. He headed out to sea oblivious to the fact that he was hooked. Turning him took awhile but turn he did and Jackie got out his net once we saw him near the surface. This was a 10 pounder that needed�and got--his picture taken before joining his friends in the cooler. This was not our biggest fish as James was the proud catcher of a very nice 16.4 pounder a short while later.

We had sandwiches and junk food for lunch but the special treat was some elk/cheese/jalapeno summer sausage and crackers that I brought along to share. This sausage was processed in Kerrville with meat from two elk calves that my oldest son, Curt III shot. Jackie pronounced it the best jalapeno sausage he had ever had since it had an abundance of jalapenos in it.

After lunch we continued to fish with steady results catching fish. Many times we had two on at a time, and several times we had three fish on. Two gar liked our bait and were brought in temporarily until they could get unhooked, and one channel cat joined the blues in the cooler. From about 2 to 3 PM the fishing was not so steady, except for James. Dennis and I watched James catch fish after fish while we just twiddled our thumbs. So, we moved to the front of the boat where James was doing so well; but, it did not matter---James just started catching them from the back of the boat while we watched again. After James (the �fish hog�) Florez caught 12 to our 2 we decided it was time to go home giving him credit for catching the last one. By now, the sun had finally made its presence known and the overcast skies turned clear. Some sunburns were beginning to show, especially on me. It was time to head back to Sandy Shores.

When we got to the launch site and the place to clean the fish we had to get a bucket to put the cats in because we could not lift the cooler to get it out of the boat. We arranged all the fish on the cleaning table for a picture. What a great picture! 57 blue catfish and 1 channel catfish stacked up three high with three smiling but no longer delusional catfish fisherman. It was a great day on the lake. Each of us brought home two one-gallon bags of fillets, enough to feed us for a long time to come.

If you want to take this trip we recommend going to Gun Barrel City the night before and staying in a local motel. We stayed at Big Chief which was very close to the Sandy Shores launch spot. (Be careful about going on First Monday Canton since all the motels often sell out.) There are several good restaurants in town where you can get a good steak dinner, or terrific Mexican food, and there are some really excellent breakfast places that serve food guaranteed to block every artery in your body. Call Jackie Kennedy at 903.603.3793, or look him up on his website at [url=www.JackieKennedyFishingGuide.com]www.JackieKennedyFishingGuide.com[/url]. We paid $350 for two people plus $75 for each additional person. This is a great trip to take your kids or grandkids on since you will catch fish.