Catfishing Father's Day

This years 2nd annual catfishing Father's Day event went off as usual. We got the boys together along with my brother in law and his boy along with another friend. We took off around 6 am and headed to the river in Saginaw County, near St. Charles. We unloaded the boats at the ramp and headed down the cut to the main river entrance. It was a beautiful morning, about 65 or 70 degrees and sunny.

We made it to the honey hole we fished last year, and proceeded to cast the lines and get ready for the action! It wasn't long before we got a few bites. Michael caught his first catfish ever! A nice keeper to go into the basket, last year he got skunked. So far so good, then I hooked one and let Jacob reel it in. It put up a good fight, then Michael scooped it in the net, another keeper. I finally reeled one in, to make it three in the basket. It wasn't long before Jacob hooked one by himself, he set the hook and reeled it all the way to the boat! This was his first catfish that he caught by himself, another keeper! While we were sitting in the boat, we heard some splashing in the nearby marsh. We looked up and saw a deer along with her fawn making their way through the weeds and water! That was pretty exciting. We managed to put 7 in the basket with only one too small to keep. The fish stopped biting so we moved up river to another spot.

It wasn't long before I hooked another one for the basket. Then I hooked another one that felt really big. So I handed the reel to Jacob and he struggled to get it to the boat, it turned out to be a really big sheep head. They are not a fish that you would want to keep but it put up a good fight for Jacob! He had a ball catching that one. My brother in law also caught a huge sheep head, probably close to 15 pounds! It was a monster.

All in all we caught 8 fish, the same as last year. We had enough to make a good size meal for the family. We also had the river to ourselves, we never saw another boat while we were there! It was a great day and a great way to spend the day with the boys on father's day! It reminded me of my grandfather a lot that day. I can't wait until next year.