Potomac River 12-29-2012

Heading out on the Potomac River  tomorrow to chase down some bluecats calling for rain and snow tomorrow and the big fish are biting on the river me and troy went the other week put a bunch of fish in the boat but only one hawg at 59 lbs  but it was still a really fun day hoping we can get on them tomorrow  heres a pic of the 59 lb we got the other week

Fish Of A Lifetime 11-4-2012

so Saturday about midday my buddy Robert stopped by on his way down from WV to go meet big Dave down in Richmond,Va  to pick an order up from him so we shot the bull for an hour or so and he said hes going to hit the road well my buddy Clint called me to shoot the bull and i told him Robert was heading down there and Clint said get your ass in the car with him we will fish on the boat tomorrow next thing i know we are heading south towards Richmond .
 
   we got to the hotel and i was looking at the weather 40 degrees in the morning with overcast Sky's all day and 3 mph winds i told Robert its going to happen tomorrow did not know if i was thinking we were just going to get into a pile of fish or a nice one just had a feeling something was going to happen

 so we met Clint at the dock at 6 am got on the water by about 15 minutes after so the first stop was to go get bait it was real tough to get we got 9 shad only 6 of which were big cutters then we had a certain person drive his boat within 15 ft of us and set his gill net are you F@#%@^#@   kidding me ? we did not let it get the best of us so off to our first spot to fish  and we timed it perfect the tide had just just started to creep out

  after getting the 3 or 4th  out of 8  casted out a rod went down with a little dink on it then Robert hit a dink 2 minutes later my rod loaded with what felt like a pretty decent fish it ended up going 29 lbs not to bad for not even 5 minutes into the day. 20 minutes or so passes by with no other takers or bites at all  Clint asked me do you want to move i said lets set on this spot about another 25-30 minutes so 25 minutes pass he again asks want to move i said 5 more minutes  about 3 minutes later i see a rod get a very very light bite then i saw the line tense up and it started to load , when the tiger rod finally loaded i came back on the fish  it ran straight at me had to reel as fast as i could to keep up with it and when i did i tightened the drag because the fish did not feel big and it was kind of loose  well the fish started to come up then all of a sudden it made a hard run right to the bottom i immediately backed off of the drag i said man this feels like a good fish  then it cane back up started to second guess myself then she made another hard run and i said man this fish is throwing out some slow wide head shakes i start thinking to myself this could be the one were looking for .

     the fish came back up i could see the fish about 3 ft down in the water and i said this is a really nice fish and when then huge belly broke the water i was in shock ! Clint reached out with the net the fish barley fist in the net and it was a big net lol i looked down and the belly of the fish was hanging out of the net i threw the rod sorry Clint lol and grabbed the front of the net to ensure it was a netted fish . then i went nuts it came over the rail and i yelled that's a 100 lb fish !  well the adrenaline was pumping and when i came down some i got more realistic  and said man that fish is bigger than my Pb which is 70.2 lbs  Clint said my scale only goes to 50 lbs i thought to myself i know how this one will end lol we did not even get the fish halfway off of the ground and the scale read FULL did not care i was so pumped it did not matter we got some pics of her admired her for a minute and turned her loose safe and sound into the water

 we ended up fishing until about noon ish  with Robert catching a nice keeper striper and i picked up another 20 lbr   


  we did not get a measurement on the fish we had her out of the water for long enough and to be honest i did not even think to do it so i wanted to hurry up and get some pics and turn her loose and not risk that big pig dying   it was a fish of a lifetime i know its my biggest catfish Ive ever caught but cannot verify it but its all good i got the fish to the boat and got a pic and turned her loose its all that matters and all i care about   plus 20 years from now it will make a hell of a story to tell  


 Clint i cannot thank you enough welcoming me and Robert on your boat with open arms we had a hell of a time even if we would not have put that fish in the boat it was a great day on the water and ill never forget it thanks again bro   

  here is a few pics of the beast !

Mastercatters 2 Wounded Warrior Event

well it is that time of year again and i cannot wait , it is time for the annul Mastercatters2 Wounded Warrior Event  down in Hopewell Va on OCTOBER 20 TH 2012   fishing on the Mighty James River . This event is very near and dear to my heart even more so after 2011  i lost a childhood Friend Sgt. Sean T. Callahan aka Cali  he was killed in the line of duty in April of 2011  after this tragic loss this event has meant even more than it has in the past not that is was not important to me before but it just mean so so much more to me.

    At last years event i had the pleasure to be Captain Archie Golds first mate aboard the Night Stalker we had "Bama" and Sgt Zach along for the ride and these guys were just a joy to be around to say the least . the first fish of the day Bama hooked up with a 34 lb James river blue cat when he picked the rod up i thought it was going to pull him over the stern of the boat he did great fighting the fish a little while goes by and I'm told by my cousin Robby that the boat he was first mating on Jason's Team Mojo boat that they had just put a monster 80 lb giant in the boat i was stoked to hear that .


    about an hour or so passed and Sgt Zach reeled in a nice stiper pushing the 5 lb mark a couple minutes goes by when i look back and Zach looked like a pro i see him setting the hook with no one looking i asked you gottem ? he replied yea he don't feel to big , the fish was coming right to the boat when all of a sudden straight to the bottom it went i yelled up to Capt Archie i think we got a good fish  i was behind Zach guiding him while he was walking backwards so we could try and land the fish when all of a sudden the beast came to the top of the water Zach started to shake AKA Cat fever lol  i told him don't look at the fish just keep doing what your doing and fight him i ran to the stern of the boat with the net after a 5 - 10 minute fight i get the fish in the net as i was lifting it of the side i pulled it over and yelled theres a 50+ lbr baby high fives and hugs all around !

  a short while later we made our way back to Hopewell Marina  to meet up with the rest of the crew i was anxious to see the beast of an 80 lbr and WOW we kept Sgt Zach's 53 lbr to bring back to the ramp for pictures with Jason and Robs and 63 years young Mr Tony's 80 lbr all fish were released alive and well to fight again another day   


after pictures we went up the hill for a  HUGE cookout with our new Friends it was a hell of a time and each event is very special in its own way but this one was bitter sweet for me cause it wasn't to long after i lost my Friend Sean i was thinking about him all day long and shared stories about him  MISS YOU BRO  " ALWAYS BESIDE YOU "   

GOD BLESS OUR TROOP'S AND CANT WAIT TO MEET THESE HERO'S THIS WEEKEND

James River Heartbreak 9-2-2012

well this was our first trip to the James in a good long while the bite has been really slow down there with a nice fish being caught every once in a while , and we had to compete with what was left of the hurricane coming east towards VA  we met Capt. Hugh  down at his boat at 545 pm  when we got there it was pouring down rain so we ate some dinner and waited it out for about an hour or so after the rain settled down we made a run out to the main river to get bait met a buddy of our " mean gene" and he hooked us up with a good bit of bait i threw the cast net a few times to pick up a couple live shad we made a run to our first spot  after 20 minutes of sitting on the spot Robby hooked up with a decent fish it pulled the hook right next to the boat 15 minutes later his rod loads up again i netted the fish it hit the 40 lb mark  we made a move after a while and did a little drift fishing Robby picked up a 31 lb blue doing that  then Hugh caught a 17 lbr


  i had only had 5 bites one pull down and a miss  so i was kinda bummed at about 1 am i had a bait drifting on my quantum big cat rod  when Hugh looked at his depth finder and said " uhh oh  we got a monster stalking a bait " 2 seconds after he said that my big cat rod was literally buried under the boat at a 90 degree angle with 2 eyelets in the water i jumped up out of my seat  all hell was breaking loose  i could not get the rod out of the holder i tried 3 times and the rod was still bent under the boat so i had to do something i would never recommend just because it is stupid but it was the only thing i could think to do in a split second i grabbed the for grip of the rod with my left hand and stripped line out with my right hand to take some pressure off it worked i got the rod out and immediately the fish tried pulling me down to my knees had the fish on for about 15 seconds after i got the rod out then all of a sudden it went slack


 i reeled the slack in and the line had broke  i dropped to my knees and hung my head over the side of the boat i thought i was going to puke i was so sick to my stomach after about 3-4 minutes of silence Hugh said that was a monster then tells me in all his 25 + years on the river that was the most violent hit he has ever seen now that's saying something then Robby and Hugh ask me how it feels to have lost possibly a potential 80-100+ lb fish i said not good not good at all



      i had to lick my wounds for the rest of the night i barley wanted to fish anymore  we ended up fishing until 630 am Monday morning got  home about 9 i went to bed when i woke up i inspected the rod i hit the huge fish on  and looked at the break in the line and noticed the line was frayed  then i ran my hand down 6 ft of line and it was all tore up  and then looked at the reel and saw the line was dug down into the spool in 6 different spots  one spot the line dug back down into the reel almost a 1/2 inch which was not like that before we fished and i know for sure was not like that when the fish hit i just could not believe the raw power of that fish but its OK i had my nightmares about it last night and I'm at one with it lol  Robby ended up having 4 fish for the night total a 41, 31,28,and a 10 lbr   it was a beautiful night on the river sturgeon jumping everywhere  just and awesome night except for the obvious lol

we will get that big pig next time i know where she roams now

It's Been A While

well it has been a couple months since my last post the catfish bite just shut down what seemed like it last almost 3 months it was really weird in that time we did allot of crappie fishing with good good numbers on some trips we bank fished 2 Saturdays in a row and caught right around 60 -70 each time out all on jig heads  then me and Robby fished a lake and had a monster day for crappie with HUGE numbers we caught over 120 crappie in about an hour and half or so   with some hitting the 10-11 in mark , the catfish bite has just really started to turn back on lake around the house  within the last couple weeks went out with rob on his boat a few weeks ago anchored up on a spot had 8 good pull downs within 15 min of fishing then a big storm with 60 + mph winds forced us off , me and Cody went out on his boat last weekend to the same lake the same spot and started getting bites immediately when the first fish finally committed it ended up being a nice 18 lb blue cat  then Cody hit a 5 lb channel  about an hour and thirty minutes went by with out a nibble and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz my same rod that had the 18 lbr on it started screaming again  and let me tell you this fish fought and fought and fought some more it came up next to the boat had a massive head when i first saw it i was thinking that fish is going 45 + lbs   when it went back down it ripped close to 60 yards of line off of my abu 6000 with 48 lb test on it the drag was MAXXED out  finally got him to the boat once again and landed him  it ended up being an awesome 35 lb blue cat man what a fight ! anyways i promise to start keeping this thing updated more often just have had different things going on   anyways tight lines everyone !

heading to the james river tomorrow

well 4 am cannot come soon enough  ! me robby and cody are hittin the road at 4 am to head south towards the james river  we will be fishing with catfishin carrie tomorrow aboard her toon , looking forward to this trip we might not get much fishing done because of all of the jokes and laughing we will be doing but i know one thing it will be fun  going to go catch some hickory shad in the morning then go on the hunt for catfish !

The Mighty Potomac River 3-16-12

Cannot wait for tomorrow going with my buddy TROY from the odcc catfish club tomorrow on the Potomac River went and got fresh bluegill and crappie today  were going to be hitting in nice and early  and fish hard all day i think we are just going on the hunt for some monsters tomorrow and they are out there suppose to thunderstorm tomorrow afternoon but should be in good shape for the morning and mid day going to have a high of 85 ! looks like we will need to break out the sunscreen in mid march !!!!! that shit is crazy this will be my first trip out to the Potomac this year  im really excited alot of big fish have been caught over the last month and with this warming trend we are hoping tomorrow will be filled with rods getting slammed to the water ripping drag ahhhh cant wait , hopefully will have some nice pics to post up tomorrow night

FIRST CAT FROM THE BANK IN 2012

well went down to a local lake with a buddy and a freind from highschool who i have not seen for almost a year anyways the wind was screaming about 25-30 mph whitcapping on the lake we were fishing for crappie and had brought some cat rods with us  we ended up going to a point i have not fished to much and never have in march steven had some bait to cut up for cats we threw some crappie rods for a bit and i said ok i got to get a cat line in the water i cut the bait up and threw it out put the clicker on walked back to my crappie rod threw it out and heard a click click click and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz   i ran over to my cat rod fought the fish towards the bank didnt think it was that big got to the bank and it started ripping some drag off got it to the bank brandon said u want me to get him i said yea yea he reached down and put it on the bank i said holy shit that thing has a gut on it we put the fish on the scales brandon said im going to guess 30 lbs i said mmmm maybe 25 put it on the scales and it was 25 lbs 1 oz put the tape on it and it maxed my little 35 in tape out thinking it was around 36 -37 inches took a quick pic and turned her loose only fish we had caught it was a fun time tho anyways heres the pic of it 

rob's boat

well we went down to Richmond yesterday to pick up Rob's new old motor from Loyd got it home took the 110 hp of robs boat which was not to bad but that little 90 hp he got was a heavy son of a bitch lol ended up getting it on and mounted could not hook the tilt trim up because the connections on the 90 were different from the controls he had on there so we got to hook the controls up that came with the 90 up maybe next weekend  hopefully we can get her on the water here in the next few weeks still a few things to pick up depth finder gill net etc etc , last week me and Cody spent a couple days working on his new boat and  melting lead old sinkers wheel weights stuff like that ended up with 70 lbs of lead still waiting on Robby to bring his lead over to melt we will prolly end up with right around 100 lbs of lead when its all said and done now we just need to get a couple river sinker molds and eye's for them and we can get cranking on that

2-12-12

well went to lake brittle only 77 acer's grew up fishing that lake , i was just fishing from the bank today with a buddy from a couple catfish clubs  Vince he meet me out at the lake i was already just walking onto the Pier when he pulled up before he even got to the pier i had thrown the cast net and caught about 70 little "candy shad " shad that are 5 inches and less i through most of them back except for about 20  after re tying some rigs we got cut the tails off of the candies and put them out whole got my 3 rods out and Vince's 1  it was spitting a couple snow flurries which is almost like deer hunting in the snow its just amazing well after a while we began to fish for crappies while we were letting the shad soak  had a big bite on a 1 in crappie jig think it was either a bass or a walleye crappie in that lake are not big at all and that fish had some weight on it after that we reeled the rods up and put fresh bait on and got them back out about 2 pm i called my buddy Brandon told him he should come up so he gets a ride up there and it starts to flurry again i said what the hell did you bring the snow with you for ? now mind you this was after a good few hours with no snow and sunshine he shows up it gets Grey as hell and starts to snow  so he walks out on the pier i was checking out his new reel he had got as he was putting a sinker on his other rod when all of a sudden i heard my clicker go out zzzzz    zzzzz   zzzzzzzzz and then stopped Vince had just finished packing up to head home when this happen i picked the rod up didn't feel nothing set it down 10 seconds later zzzzz zzzzz zzzz  i picked it up felt the fish and set it , knew it was not a big fish  when it came to the top i said damn its a mud cat because i saw alot of yellow on the belly then i saw the orange i said damn that's a big ass yellow perch ! it ate a whole 5 in candy with the tail cut off you can even see the bait hanging out of his mouth in the pic the perch ended up going 14 inches and 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 lbs    20 seconds after i threw the perch back i looked out towards the points i said damn that looks cool with all of that snow blowing across the lake  then it hit us and it was white out condition's it was nuts ! wind blowing 40 mph it was snowing so hard i could not see my truck in the parking lot 40 yards away we packed our shit up and hauled ass back to the truck the temps just plummeted i could not believe how hard it was snowing through our shit in the bed of the truck and down the road we went all the back roads were covered in 1/4 in of snow in 10 minutes or less made it home safe  but had a damn good time and an interesting one to boot here are a few pics     

Vince and i

the only catch of the day on shad wish it had whiskers but at least it was a nice perch

a picture Vince took from his truck right before it got really bad you cannot even see me and Brandon on the pier

Emergency Trip To The James River 2- 4 -12

well the morning started off with me robby and cody going to a fishing flea market in dale city Virginia got there nice and early at 7am when it finally opened we went inside looking for anything that we could use for catfish whether that be crappie jigs to catch crappie and bream for live bait to catfish reels me and cody had found these 2 okuma reels SD 20's used but in decent shape for $10 each robby found a nice almost brand new looking abu garcia 65000 c3 for a good deal well we made our rounds only took about 20 - 30 minutes to see what we need to see and got out of there on the way home i called Hugh to see if he had his clients on any fish yet was still really in the morning mind you he told me they never showed ! i asked if he was on the river he said yea , then i asked who's fishing with him he said no one jokingly  i said we will be down in 2 hours then  Hugh replied come on  so it was a mad dash to the house to get some warm cloths a couple rods and south bound we went got down there at about 1130 am meet Hugh at the slip went for a decent little boat ride  we had several bites but no takers  finally robby ended up hooking up with  one that was running sideways on him ended up going 26.9 lbs nice fish but not the one we were looking for me ,Hugh & cody finally caught a fish each but they were dinks  less than 5 lbs and mine and Hugh's were at almost dark it was a cold rainy day on the river thank god we had the top up the whole time or we would have been soaked ! well getting ready to head back to the slip Hugh made me a bet of $20 i wouldn't ride back to the yacht basin in nothing but my boots and boxers robby said ill match that 20  so damn if i didn't do it it was about a 3 mile run and prolly 33 degrees outside running wide open ! and i was not allowed to sit down had to stand up and hold onto the handle on the console lets just say it was a realllllllly cold ride but it was fun Hugh looked at me and said i cant believe you did that and started to laugh his ass off i told him i had a screw or two loose  but was an awesome time to say the least

james river fishing report from 1/28/12

well it was a rough start to the day the motor would not crank over so we grabbed a spare battery and hooked it up let it charge for about 15 minutes and were finally able to get on the water ran to a spot to get bait 3 or 4 minute soak had 35-40 cutters (big shad ) gave some to a few friends and off we went made a damn long run down river fished from 830 til noon it did not produce ran up to another spot that i had fished once before a couple years ago where my buddy Brandon caught his pb blue being 55 lbs  and we marked a couple nice fish on the bottom Hugh's rod went down tried getting tangled in rods so i was doing the dance moving rods around then he yelled chop #4 is down i throw is rods back in the holders come back on my fish and nothing  ended up landing the biggest and only fish of the day with Hugh's fish ended up going 35 lbs  it was a windy and brutal day made it hard to anchor up and just was not fun to be in i made a big pot of deer chili and brought down with me and we had a little propane stove to heat it up  boy did that hit the spot ended up getting off of the water at 630 and me and Robby headed home decided not to fish today Sunday the 29th because they were calling for the same conditions and the bite had shut off and we were drained from sitting in 30 mph hour winds allllllllllll day all in all it was fun got to see some Friends out on the water  that were trying to hunt us down for deer chili but were unsuccessful  ( CLINT ) lol   maybe next time buddy  but is always a fun time

James River 1-28-2012

Well me and robby are gearing up for a trip down to the james river to fish with our buddy hugh next saturday there have been some big fish caught this will be our second trip of the new year and we will be on the hunt for some monster's will post a fishing report with what we are hoping will be an awesome trip !

Well this is going to be my first time ever "blogging" hopefully i will get better at this as time goes on i love to talk fishing but i will absolutley talk your ear off about catfishing it is my passion think about it almot 24/7 its almost like a sickness lol cant wait to really get this blog up and running good thanks for checking it out and let me know what you think !