[Dafish]

Friday the wife asked "are you going fishing, as it might be the last decent day in a while?" I was not real enthused as Wednesday I went and it took forever to catch some bait and I fished for 5 hours and did not get one bite. Hit all the good places and not so good places and nothing.

Figured might as well go try again, at least get out of the house. and be happy if I got a bite.
I caught some bait, then figured I would just go to a close spot even though i did not get a bite there Wednesday.

 

[Dafish]

 

[Dafish]

Sunday, I was stressed out form the gas prices and all things going up in cost plus all the Russia news, told the wife at 1pm, "I'm going fishing" caught 2 6 inch shad and figured that was good enough.

I caught more but was tired of taking pictures, also had 5 poles out (I use to use 3 poles but BYB said I needed more)and 4 of them were in with fish on them, after I got done with them, I reeled in the other pole and the bait was gone, what!!!
took me over an hour to eat my sandwhich....not complaining but I was sore this morning

 

[Dafish]

I need to remember the good times while during the summer when I am roasting and not getting a bite

for some reason the wifey will not let me wash my fishin clothes and towel with her regular cloths, wimmen

 

[Dafish]

Congrats, you will find out persistence pays off.
I went out and caught 2 4 pounders on shad, 37 degrees and lots of debris floating down the river
I netted a soccer ball and some water bottles

 

[Dafish]

there are some DYI videos/pictures of people using the rear pedestal hole and making rod holders that go in it.
Either PVC or aluminum

I had thought about that last year, then a friend said he would make me a couple rod holders.

 

[Dafish]

Went fishing Tuesday, did not plan on it, took the vacuum cleaner to clean the boat and download an update to my fish finder. While the down load was going, I thru the cast net out and second cast caught about a dozen 10 inch shad, last time it took over an hour to catch 3. Figured might as well go fishin. went to the first spot I took Sam to back last year, in the first 3 hours I caught one I thnk 18lbs. Then I caught a 30lb, another hour and nothing, then about 4 pm, not sure if a school came by or they just started biting as the wind had died down to nothing. Could not keep the lines in the water, at one time I had 3 on at one time. The updte was taking forever and all this time I thought I was down loading the update I had put on the SD Card, well come to find out, I guess I screwed up cause it down loaded the map from the fish finder to the SD card.

this retirement thing is a lot of work.

 

[Dafish]

Caught 11 at a different spot today after trying several other areas without a bite. Hot n no wind

 

[Dafish]

When I started this thread, that day I could not catch any shad, nothing was showing up on the graph, after about an hour of throwing the cast net I caught a 3ish lb carp and used it.
This last Friday after Sam and I caught some bait and not blue cats, a lady who lives there said the day before I caught the carp in the cast net, there was 300-350 Pelicans in there herding all the shad. She said they were landing in the river and coming in groups. She showed me a video on her phone, the place was packed with Pelicans and no, they were Not Snows

oh here is a shad Sam caught 1.77lbs, not sure why he threw it back, was probably some good eatin.

 

[Dafish]

Today, after dropping the grandkid off with his parents, the wife wanted some peace and quiet so I went fishing as I too was wore out by the 6 year old .
3 hours of nothing beside a couple bait stealers, then caught a couple around 18lbs and 3lbs and then the one below. That was a lot of fun in heavy current with my bad back and did not have my back belt on. and of course caught in on one of my light rods... caught it on a 3-4 inch shad with the tail cut off..

 

[Dafish]

Nice work on the big blue! Did you put it on the scale?
Looked up the state record shad and we were still almost a pound short!
Hopefully all these shad live and spawn, because I've got 6 bait ponds stocked now!

59.2 lbs with out the net, which is to small...

 

[Dafish]

tell him congrats, he will be out fishing you in no time

 

[Dafish]

Sunday it was really windy. River is running about 255,000 cfps n anchor kept braking loose. All wing dam’s were under water. Fishing at the end of one of them got caught in a whirlpool. While heading to truck figure might as well tie up n re-rig 2 of the rods that got broke off. Threw a couple rods out n commens’d to rigging. Seen I had a nibble. It pulled some. I cranked down and the fight was on. Drag was pretty tight but it was pulling drag an it was hard to get the rod out of the holder. Started to pump him in It then decided to swim to me. Cranking as fast as I could didn’t know if it was still on or not. He let me know when he was about 30 yards out. Fun while it lasted. Only bite of the day but it sure was a frustrating day.

 

[Dafish]

I bought a new "better" anchor yesterday and on the way home, thought, Catfish Dave uses cinder blocks for anchors, would have been a whole lot cheaper.
fyi: Catfish Dave is a U-tube catfishing character

 

[Dafish]

Good info, thank you sir

I did the mushroom anchor thing, which did not work, it just drug along in the mud. Then a different anchor that was recommended by a lake fisherman, that did not work, well after 3-5 tries I would get it to hold, maybe.
Yesterday I bought a Cat River anchor at Bluff City Fishing store. It worked great today, held each time and pulled up okay, but I did not even get one bite even though I marked fish.
Cat River is similar to the Monster Anchor in the video.

Cat River Anchors

catriveranchors.com

To go along with the knife handy to cut the rope, if in an emergency you need to not be anchored,(like you have a monster fish or tree) do not throw all the rope over board at once.
It will go down river faster then your boat and if you start the motor and put it in gear, it can wind the rope in the prop spin you around and you can be sucked down pretty quick.
I read about this happening to several people on the Catfish1 website while I was researching anchors.
I use a big boat bumper for a float for the rope anchor, it just happened to be floating down the river.

 

[Dafish]

Have not posted in a while, when the water came up I stopped catching fish and it seems when it does come up where I fish, I cannot find them. It has been picking up in the last 2 weeks. mainly smaller 5-8 pounders with a 15-20 now and then. Noticed the last 3 weeks the guys by the Arch have been catching quite a few with a slammer in there now and then. They are catching flat heads too.
Went out yesterday , could not catch bait but I had my bow with me and shot a couple asian carp for bait. I did catch gar and crappie in my throw net though, they get thrown back.
I was going to fish this one spot for a bit in which Ihad been catching one small blue each time, on the way there my finder showed a big fish, I said,"that's a big fish" I noted a tree on the shore line 150 yards away and went on. Fished the one spot and caught a 8pounder, floated on down the river until I got where I thought I had found that fish, Spot-locked, man I love that thing, and threw my lines out, caught a 5pounder, then lost another one , just came unhooked. Then the line on the left pole decied it wanted to go across the river and the fight was on. Never knew a fish could go to the bottom and act like a boat anchor, but it did, several times, the drag on my reel was smoking, not really, but it may be damaged.
I was glad I caught it on one of my TWC Medium Heavy rods, aka telephone poles, 65lb braid with 80lb WS mono leader 8/0 triple threat WS hook, 20minutes later it was in the boat...and I was whooped, half the fight was trying to net it by myself in the current, each time I tried it would take off and head towards the bottom. I caught 2 mall ones after that down the river a ways

BYB probably recognizes the spot as behind me a couple hundred yards is where we caught a number of Blues early this year.

 

[Dafish]

It is hard to take a good selfie will trying to pick up a 70lb wet/slimy limb noodle , and pose with in 10 seconds, next time, if there is a next time, i will do a video and pick out photos...


figure @RRMan and the KC gang have been putting lots of cats in their boats, Seen a picture of 2 guys with 5 blues with a total of over 300 lbs last week over that way..

 

[Dafish]

That's a nice haul!!!!! I've got nothing exciting to report fish wise, I've been on the struggle bus and couldn't break 25lbs all summer long, I feel as though I am doing something wrong but can't figure it out. The most I can haul in is 3 fish a trip and that's a long day of fishing.

As for fishing in general my days are numbered for a while me and the wife welcomed a young man into this world last Saturday the 6th so all our energy is in him for a while. I'm super excited to get him on the river one day to get pics of fish bigger then him but we are a couple years out from that.

congrats on the little one, couple years from now he will be showing you how to catch fish

In July I went out 5 times and caught 3 little ones
I looked back to last year and the same time of summer I was not catching any fish until about now.
The Kansas guides and my buddy's there catch wipers during the summer as they cannot catch blues either
along with the u-tube catfish guys. Something about the blues on nest spawning for a couple months..
'

 

[Dafish]

Congrats Dave, you’ve come a long way and are killing it now!

Hey I had a good teacher

for any of you guys who are bidding on the catfish trips, ask Sam or Greg lots of questions even if you think the questions are stupid, they will make something up
Sam showed me how to dead stick and him and Greg showed me how to bottom bounce, I sort of knew by watching u-tube videos but they re-enforced on what I knew

a couple weeks ago when I could not catch bait, Sam asked if I ever bow fished? light went on as I had everything but a fish arrow, which I had misplaced, so went to the store and bought one and now shoot my bait . Wife said she wondered why I did not do that....duh... wives

 

[Dafish]

How about winter blues!!!! Had a nice day on the river today the fog was a little rough but that didn't stop us. In KC it seems to be about 8ft low by my eyeballs but we managed a 5,16,17,23, and a new personal best for the boat of 52 and I'm proud to say my wife got to wrestle the big girl to the boat. I think it was the pink shoes that brought us the luck today hahaha

Congrats, looks like lots of fun..

water here was right at 32 and outside temps were 55 so the fog on the river was so thick there was a boat 30 yards from me and it would disapear, an neither of us caught anything.