yesterday I was fishing one of my favorite brush piles and getting some nice crappie untill the fish just turned off. one momet they were biting really good and then just quit. I fished their for abouy ten minnunts untill something slammed my jig. Yup you guessted it a big flathead catfish well if you call 31# big. I was using a 5' ultra light rod and 4# test line it took me about 45 minnets to land the fish with no net. I felt like a real pro becuse their were 6 boats right their watching me and cheering me on. When the battle was over I turned the big trash fish loose. The crappie started biting again. And I finshed the day with a nice stringer of fish.

Since when is the most challenging catfish to catch a trash fish ?

I bet that was a blast, wish I could have one of those days!

waco, i too catch a lot of different type fish on my brushpiles. But I have found that a lot of my customers like the idea of catching different species of fish. What may be trash fish to some, is a lively sport for others. That catfish you caught would have been fillets by dark had I caught it.

eating catfish? yuck! Give me a good mess of crappie any day. besides don't give me too mutch flack about it after all I did let it live too fight another day. I'm just not a catfisherman. So to thouse of you out their who found my referral to catfish as trashfish offensive well I'm sorry.

You did the right thing, not everyone likes catfish, I believe we should put those large fish back in the lake anyway.

waco kid,

I made a post not long ago in the catfish section about people that do not like catfish to eat, in fact they find them repulsive..lol

Some of them are even regular fisherman like yourself. Just curious, have you ever eaten a catfish you did like, each species has a different and specific taste, most of them are good to eat if cooked correctly.

I am only asking out of curiosity..when you wrote " eat a catfish ..yuck " it reminded me of folks I have tried to get to eat some fresh caught channel cats I cooked. They would not do it, said they like fish, even freshwater fish, but not catfish. They refered to them as the "garbage cleaners of the lakes, and they don't eat garbage"

Just more for me I guess.

That cat was having some dinner on those crappie

Robert I have eaten catfish before and their really not bad. However I mutch prefer crappie.and other fish like sea trout & redfish frome the coast witch I have a freezer full of right now.

Well I am glad you turned the Ap loose. But on the other hand if you like crappie and specs and reds then you would have liked the Ap as well. Aps are a different texture then blues and channels. And in fact the meat is whiter then crappie. But hey each person has their own preference. I on the other hand will eat a Ap over a crappie but crappie is next in line. Congrats on your catch.

waco kid,

Thats cool, I can certainly understand your love for speckled trout, that is my favorite fish to eat. Must have been one heck of a fight on light tackle, I would love to do that some day.

Have a good one, good fishing to you and keep those stories coming, that was a good one.

I hate catching catfish when i am crappie fishing becasue when they knock the **** out of it and i think it is a huge crappie, but i love to catch them when i am fishing for them. I hate the way catfish taste though, they taste like mud and all the dead stuff catfish eat. I have tasted all of them and the best is blue's but they still aren't very good. Anyway just my two cents. God Bless

What kind of catfish was you eating slabslayer a mud cat lol. Because alps and channels and blues dont taste like mud. If you ate some of the catfish that ive cleaned and cooked with crappie you would be going back for seconds and thirds lol.

Tell me more about all this dead stuff catfish eat that makes them taste like mud.....specifically the yellow cat??

Waco,

It's not just YOUR brushpile but nearly all brushpiles sometimes cough up a flathead or blue cat. It's happened to countless of us crappie fishers and I love it when one of those big brutes hits! Enjoy it, pat the fish on the head and thank it for the bend in your pole, then turn it back. It'll feel better and so will you....

plus when you are crappie fishing and you catch a cat it usually does a number on my line like twisting it up and giving it a good coat of slime so it is kind of a hassle when you are not fishing for catfish