Catfish vs skirted spinner bait

[FinsnFur]

I've only had this happened one other time in my life that I can recall. Catching monster catfish on bass spinners.
I went down to the river tonight to see if I could recover some of my lost tackle now that the water is gone down tremendously.
Of course I took my poles with me lol. I wasn't able to get any of my tackle back yet but I found a bunch of Smalley's circling in the shallows. Serious shallow too, like 6 inches of water.
Caught a couple real nice Smallmouth 15 - 16 inches and then ripped this thing out of the brush of a downed tree.
As big as the Smalley's were that I was catching I seriously thought this was going to be a world record Smalley when he rolled and showed me his colors. I had the fishing version of buck fever setting in.
He was ripping line out of the baitcaster as if I left the bail open. I can remember muttering to myself please don't get off.... please don't get off. LOL
Well it wasn't a world record smallmouth but he put up a hell of a good fight. I'm guessing 7 or 8 pounds of catfish here.


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[Okanagan]

WOW!  That must have been some fight!

[slagmaker]

Oh man! That looks like he would have been fun

[nastygunz]

Fish fry!... Did I miss something, you lost tackle?

[slagmaker]

Hey give us some more info on the tackle you were using. Enquiring minds want to know.

[pitw]

How'd it taste?

[JohnP]

Deep fried with some good southern hush puppies and a cold beer - doesn't get any better.  When stationed at Ft Rucker, Alabama we had catfish at least twice a week.

[FinsnFur]

Yah I lost tackle, Nasty. The water has been so high here that I had to stand in the parking lot of a local boat ramp in my waders and cast towards the river. 
I kept getting snagged at the top of the boat ramp on something pretty stout. Lost to lures there and another on a submerged dock cable
As long as I get there before someone else when the water goes down, I should be able to recover them.  Hopefully.

Slag, this day it was just a simple "go to" bass spinner bait. We use them when nothing else seems to work. There's a thread in here somewhere of the kids and I making a whole slew of them as we build our own.

[Okanagan]

Deep fried with some good southern hush puppies and a cold beer - doesn't get any better.  When stationed at Ft Rucker, Alabama we had catfish at least twice a week.

Yep, before I tasted northern walleye I rated catfish the best tasting freshwater fish in North America, and it is a closed call between the two of them.

[nastygunz]

Okay that explains the lost tackle, I thought you might have done an Eskimo roll in your kayak!

[Okanagan]

Okay that explains the lost tackle, I thought you might have done an Eskimo roll in your kayak!

I love going after lost tackle.  When I was a poor young teen wading icy rivers in tennis shoes for steelhead, we would swim a river, dive in a rapids or climb a cliff to retrieve a lost lure.  One Saturday on Wind River, WA, my cousin and I started with four Mepps style spinners between us, lost six or 8 lures and came home with half a dozen.  In the clear water you can see a lure, and many hang from tree limbs over the water or up on cliff faces where an excited fisherman miscast as he looked at a big fish in the river.  (Guess how I know why he got too excited to cast well.)

After the combat salmon fishing season is over on our huge Fraser River, any underwater stump or rock ledge is festooned with lost gear.  My son and I kayaked down the river during low water one Fall, did some wading and a bit of diving in the murky water and came home with a large bucket of lures and mostly sinkers.  The salmon yarn flies, corkies and hooks are seldom worth keeping but the sinkers, swivels etc. are.  We keep a knife handy because the trailing lines are often too heavy to break and can tangle a man dangerously in swift water.    I keep a smallish dive knife on my chest, handle down with a one hand release and twice have used it to cut away lines tangling my legs while I was playing a salmon.

Slow morning, pardon my rambling.     Had bullhead catfish hit a fly behind a spinner when fishing for bass, and likewise a smallish channel cat, the only kinds of catfish I've ever fished for.  When I was little in Eastern Oklahoma, my dad was known as a superb fisherman especially for big yellow catfish.

[HaMeR]

As long as the catfish is prepared properly I agree with you Ok! Having said that,, lunker bluegill fillets soaked in salt water for 24hrs is at the top right beside those two IMO.

[nastygunz]

 I was pike fishing on the Connecticut River once and hung a big daredevil spoon up in a tree and finally wound up shooting the branch off with my shotgun to get my lure back    when I was a kid the daredevil was the only lure that existed for pike and Pickrell  and they were a significant investment for a poor kid from the hills  ha ha.  I hooked my buddy Dennis in the back of the head with a jitterbug once and drove him all the way up to the emergency room to get my lure back 

[FinsnFur]

Does anyone even use those daredevils anymore Nasty. I forgot about those lol

Thats some serious tackle recovery Okanagan 

[Okanagan]

I was pike fishing on the Connecticut River once and hung a big daredevil spoon up in a tree and finally wound up shooting the branch off with my shotgun to get my lure back   

That recovery tops them all!   

Jim, I still use Daredevil spoons, though I prefer cheap knock-offs over the original Daredevil.  The off brands are made of thinner and lighter metal and though they don't cast as well they flutter better at slow retrieval speeds.  Have caught a good many steelhead on such red and white spoons allowed to flutter down to a fish holding in the current that I could see.

[nastygunz]

The DareDevils are just deadly on Pike.  Spoon fishing is where it's at Jimbo, One of my all-time favorite smallmouth lures the Phoebe mInnow,big size n silver

And let's not forget the legendary Johnson Silver minnow

If you like to tinker you can actually make some pretty good spoons out of some actual eating spoons.

[FinsnFur]

And let's not forget the legendary Johnson Silver minnow

I still use silver minnows. Pork frogs and plastic trailers make em even better.
I didnt really think anyone used daredevils any more though. They seem so primitive lol. And I'm not sure I could crank one through any of my fishing spots as I fish a lot of wood and weed beds. Maybe that day I caught 21 Smalleys off the beach but I dont fish open water like that much cause it usually sucks on the river.

[nastygunz]

 Ever use a Phoebe minnow? I do real good with them on smallmouths in the rivers. Not so good on the largemouth in the ponds.

[FinsnFur]

Nope, never heard of it. I had to look it up. They do look like an interesting concept.

[nastygunz]

 I was fishing a backwater of the Connecticut River off a little railroad trestle once and threw a Phoebe minnow just at dusk and caught a damn bat on it! Phoebes r fish slammas!