I've been out 15 nights in August and was skunked 11 of those nights. That is a lot of hours listening to the Twins lose another one and drowning perfectly good bullheads. I figured the flats were coming off the spawn any time now and just kept after them.
Last night I started the evening on the big water south of Stillwater dragging cut bait on a deep 3-Way rigged with a big 2 oz saltwater jig on the dropper. I put a large sucker head on the jig and then hung a large hunk of cut bait off a 5/0 hook on a 30" leader off the middle 3-Way. The thing weighed a ton but it put the bait in the target zone of about 25' or so. I just trolled about 1 mph tap-tap-tapping that big 3-Way looking for a big flathead or channel cat to want a large hunk of cut bait. Right at sunset I had a beefy 30" channel cat almost rip the rod out of my hand. Been so long since I caught a cat I enjoyed the fight from that feisty channel. I missed another hit about 30 minutes later but that was all the action I could find trolling.
I moved upstream to one of my favorite flathead spots and put out a couple of bullheads. At 0045 I had a clicker screaming run and hooked up with a nice 37# flathead. He measured out at 42" X 27". I savored that moment - it has been a long time coming. I stayed out until 0500 but all I could manage after that was one extremely large and angry turtle.
Fun night - with the sturgeon season only about a week away I can feel the catfishing season slipping away. I need at least one more big one before I give up on the season.
I hate the buggers. I've got my cut bait rod rigged to a Strike Sensor so it will wake me if the cut bait gets hammered. That Strike Sensor audible alarm will wake you out of a dead sleep. That turtle would keep triggering that alarm about every 5 minutes or so. I was moving the bait all around trying to get away from that turtle - I swear he would sit on the bottom and wait to hear a sinker plunk into the water and then just bee line it to my bait. Finally I caught him - I thought I was pi$$ed at him but when I got him up to the boat he was spitting and hissing and snarling at me so bad I just grabbed the knife and cut the line. I put the cut bait rod away and put out another live bullhead. I was tired of fighting with the darn thing.
I never caught one until the June cat tourney. We hauled in 5 or 6 that night. You know me, I just had to remove the hooks from everyone I could. I had my nephew shield the head a couple times with a board in order to get pliers on the hook. No way I could have done it alone.
-------------------- You can judge a man by how far he holds a fish away from his body.
The St Croix Flatheads are back!!
