Anxious to see if the pattern of big catfish feeding shallow at night in this heat was still on last night I fished a big rock bar jutting out into the Great Miami. Since it was in the mid nineties again I didn't start fishing till three am. Things couldn't have started out any worse. I'd been there about five minutes when I had a strike. Setting the hook hard, the lure hung up for a spit second before hurtling back like it was shot out of a rifle. The 1/2 ounce lipless crankbait hit me right in the chin and the rear treble buried itself in me halfway between my chin and lower lip. right where I couldn't see it. After finding a big log to sit on I tried unsuccessfully to unhook myself with a pair of pliers. Finally I tied a length of line into a loop and slipped this over the hook. Then whack a sharp yank on the line popped it out followed by a long string of curses. But maybe it was a case of paying your dues because right away I was into fish. I caught a shovelhead about five pounds then a nice channelcat and then this big saugeye:
And after that a really nice shovelhead that hit right on the bank, really tearing things up in the shallow water:
It took a while for things to settle back down after that and I sit for a while admiring the gorgeous full moon. Then right before dawn another good fish nailed the crankbait. I thought it was another shovelhead till the bumpy head rolled up. I figured
it was a good blue cat till I landed it and saw the outer margin of anal fin which was rounded and not straight. It was a whopper channelcat! I took several close up photos to make sure I could check later at home and sure enough a channel. It takes a 26 inch channel to make Fish Ohio and this guy was almost twenty eight. A night that started off so badly ended up pretty good after all.
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