Surprise Surprise...

so, on bout' the 5th cast of the morning seeking shallow water stripers, Marciano spots a boil bout the size of a hula-hoop. Perfectly he lays his sassy shad right into the boil and immediately hooks up!

Drag screaming...surely we have a big striper! Drag still peeling I get on the i-pilot and turn it on 10 to chase the fish down. Wow!

After a couple of circles around the boat and other fishermen watching the show, the 17lb channel surfaces. I had to look at it bout' 10x to reassure myself she wasn't a blue.

Spots and the right # of rays on anal fin....check! Yup, a channel.

I've said this before, if you tied a 30lb channel tail to tail w/ a 30lb blue that poor blue would drown!

Good times. She's swimming around for someone else to catch!

Very nice. Great job. And I'm jealous

Nice fish! I wonder how many people have turned loose a fish over 10 lbs assuming it was a blue without looking close enough to relize it is a channel. Id probably be one to do it.

I am no master fisherman.. Sure looked like a blue to me when I looked at the pic. lol

Lol! Should have been on the boat! I looked at that thing several times from several directions. Rounded anal fin and lots of spots peeked my curiosity or I would have for the pic and wrote her off as a "nice blue."

I've noticed that the larger channels tend to lose their yellow gold color when they get up around 8lbs.

Toad channel.

Nice fish!

That's a good one right there!

Wow nice fish !!!

thanks guys. As big and as impressive as this fish was, still pretty wild that our new lake record channel is 29lbs.

Nice fish

I think I might have called that one a blue all day long, nice catch.

Congrats on that catch.That's the biggest channel cat I've seen in a long time.

Nice fish and congrats to the lucky angler. That sure does look like a blue to me. I guess I need a better pic of the anal fin. I just don't see the round. Either way it is a good fish for sure.

Nice fish, congrats