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CAT FISHIN' ON THE RIVER
By: Ron Wilson
May 21, 2010.... A person recently
canceled out at the last minute on a fishing trip for the next day so I
called my son who was going on a cat fishing trip with another guy at
Laird park, so I called to invite myself.
My son said we needed to pick up some
bait so the next morning when Cost Plus opened up I was there and picked
up 3 tubs of fresh
chicken liver.
After a late night my son Donald showed
up at 8 a.m. by himself as his friend canceled on him and we were off.
He said his phone said that the best bite was from around 9 a.m. to 12.
Hummm I have never caught a fish out of one of them new water berry
thing-a-ma-jigs and hope the information he got off of it was right.
We launched in the mud (the river had
dropped a couple feet) and I was glad I had four wheel drive as I had to
put it in 4-wheel as I got stuck in the sand just backing up.
Donald said he had no problem driving a
bass boat all the way down to where the
San Joaquin meets
the Tuolumne. I said no doubt but the water is a lot lower now.
I putted down river slowly in the boat
feeling my way so that I would know where to travel as I headed back
upstream on plane.
 About
a mile downstream we made our first stop, nobody home, so a short move
down river and still no action. About a mile and a half downriver I
started recognizing some of the old places I used to fish 20 years ago.
Like age the river had changed. Where there were no trees they now stood
20 feet tall and shaded the river nicely for us.
We started catching fish and the things I
looked for 20 years ago, rocky points in the current with eddy's below
etc, started coming back. I got the boat set up and we were instantly
getting bites and catching fish.
About the 5th move we found a honey hole
and started reeling in some 3 pounders. Donald complained these are to
big to eat, but fun to fight.
My pole suddenly bent double and I knew I
had one of the bigger whisker fish on. I also knew I had a problem as I
was using a small number 8 hook with a small piece of chicken liver
because I was fishing for the smaller
channel catfish we were after, you know those in the 12 inch size
and not the 12 pound size. Got the fish just under the boat and he bit
the line in two. Ok well I got most of the fight before he parted the
small line.
Donald soon had a big one on and it was
on its way out into the river and headed upstream before coming
unbuttoned. We had a good laugh and continued fishing. We used shrimp,
shad and chicken liver. Nothing on the shad, a few bites and fish on the
shrimp but in reality if you were not using chicken liver you were not
fishing. We were going threw a tub of liver an hour, that's how fast the
fish were biting.
By noon we were out of chicken liver and
having caught more fish than we wanted we called it a day. Donald said
how many catfish you want pop and I said I don't want any. Donald went
threw the live well and started culling catfish. He threw out 16 of the
bigger catfish to catch
another day.
The trip back up river was ok except for
one area where I polished the black off a new propeller on a sandbar.
Once home Donald emptied the live well
and counted 16 more fish he had to clean. Darn pop I didn't throw enough
of the fish back he said. I laughed and said if we had kept all the
small ones and the larger ones that we threw back it would take you all
the rest of the day to clean them. It was a great father son morning
with a 10 plus fish an hour morning average.
If you decide to go down and give it a
try in a boat be careful. Lots of rocks and logs and stuff down there so
be sure to use a short shaft motor and a 4 wheel drive to pull the boat
trailer out is a must in my book. |
