First time on the Red at IDOfishing.com

A bunch of years ago now, I had almost completely dropped out of fishing because of career obligations, time with the daughter growing up, running field trials with my beagles and all the things you get involved in. While reading a magazine about their annual fishing contest winners, I noticed that the name of the winner for the year was listed along with his winning record (channel cat) and his home phone number. I rolled this around in my head and wondered what would come of it if I called him. Well nothing ventured, nothing gained so I picked up the phone and as they say, the rest is history. I will not give his name as I do not have permission but he was wonderfully nice to me. I told him I had not fished for several years and wondered if I came to his place if he would take me out and show me what he was doing. You Bet! Then we ventured into a conversation about the Red River. It was like watching a bird dog get a hot scent. I could almost see his tail wag.

"So you want to go to the Red River". I offered to pay for the trip if he would take me up. Within a week we were on our way (I don't like to mess around either).

When we got there, the river was up and jumping making fishing difficult. Boats were scattered all over the river mostly hugging the bank to try to find some relief from the ferocious current. We fished all morning with almost no luck at all. He did not believe in bringing bait with. He took a can of worms and caught his own and fished with that. We caught a few bullheads which we kept for cut bait and finally, I caught a sucker about five pounds. He pounced on that immediately.

By that time, we were cold and tired and headed back to camp for some lunch and a nap. We went back up river about 4:00 PM looking for a place to fish. I spotted a current break where a little point stuck out and left a narrow strip protected from the current. I talked him into dropping the anchor and giving it a try. 400 pounds of catfish later we pulled the anchor and went back to camp to sleep like dead men. We never moved from that one spot except the catfish would break us loose once in a while and we would drift a few feet until the anchor caught again.

I have never had that kind of luck since at the spot, but only once in my many trips up there have I failed to catch a large cat there.

Photos are 1) One of my first Red River cats. Just a little feller about 10#, 2) BK looking for a place to anchor, 3) The dam at Lockport with the river roaring 4) An almost black cat I caught 5)Yours truly with a real cat.