4th of July Catfish!

Fireworks On The River

We started the fireworks early on the 4th this year. My wife had some relatives come into town for a visit for the holiday. They were from Indiana and liked to fish. So what better way to entertain the family, than to head to the water. On the first day (July 4th) we went to the local mill pond in our home town to let the little kids catch some pan fish! And catch pan fish they did.

There were no keepers but the kids had a ball catching the little buggers. Michael finally got to get his fly rod out and try it on some real fish. He caught about six small pan fish while we were there.




I told our guests that if they wanted to do some real fishing we could take the older kids up to the river and try some cat fishing! He was all for it, so we made plans and headed to the river the next morning. I recently purchased my new used 14' aluminum boat with a 15 horse merc on it. Mikey still has his 12' aluminum boat, so we hooked both boats up to the trucks and headed to the river the morning of the 5th.




I had to let Mikey drive his boat with the two older visiting boys in it with him. I had the other dad and my daughter Mackenzie. It was hard letting my teenager drive off in his boat! You gotta let them grow up sometime!

We made it to our fishing hole and it wasn't long until I hooked one. Sorry to say it was a sheep head bottom feeder. That was the only fish I caught all day. Michael hooked into a huge fish! It was pulling the boat and he managed to get it to the top of the water when I got a good look at it. It was a nice huge catfish. Probably over 4 or 5 pounds! He got it half way in the net and it flipped and spit the hook! No Fish! He did manage to catch two more that were about two to three pounds though. All in all we caught 8 fish total, and there were three really nice ones. We made our way back home and I cleaned them up before I had to head to work. I filleted them and packaged them up so they could take them back home to Indiana with them to enjoy. What a way to spend the holiday weekend! I can't wait until next year.