Plan C

[FM]

I had to make a quick change of plans last evening 5/25/18 when I got to the launch and it was coned off. A quick inspection revealed that the river was just high enough to hide the ramp under muddy water. I could have made it but not wanting to upset anyone I went to plan B. Got my boat in the water but when I approached my spot there were a couple other boats already set up. This called for a plan C. I ran the boat a few miles further to the next big deep hole and got ready to fish. It was slow except for the very first line I put in must have hit a musky on the nose. I had a massive hit and when I went to set I felt the hook pull out of the gillbait and was sure I missed a nice cat. When I got the line back in the boat it was missing the hook with only a frayed piece of leader to tell the tale. So slow I switched to cut bait on a rod and quickly things started to get interesting. I picked at the cats and probably had about half a dozen when I decided to move down the hole 50 yards. Back to live bait and catching. I had really fast action here in spite of the nearly full moon directly over head. Then I hooked into a monster which turned out to be the heaviest channel cat I ever caught it was so big and heavy it was grotesque. I got two bad pics before I released it. while I was cleaning things up to leave I caught one more nice one but nothing like the Tank of the night. To get an idea of it just look at how long the one whisker is.
FM

[DRY]

Wise man once say, "Even blurred picture better than a thousand words."   

Bill

[1iarrowking]

Wow, what a fish.  You certainly have got a pair to go out on water that high, especially at night, even knowing the river like your backyard.  I'm curious about plan B.  How did you get your boat in the water if the ramp was closed and you didn't want to upset anyone?

[FM]

I went to a different ramp, about five miles away. It's really safer with more than less water  imo. The obstructions are safely beneath the surface and the prop. The closed launch is a particularly low level one a few days ago the access road would have been below water.

[HenryDavid]

Nice cat, did you get a length measurement?   How did you take the selfie? 

[FM]

Quick rough measure at 32 inches. Wish I had a good digital scale. It was heavy. Our English Bulldog puppy is 5 months old and about the same size. She weighs about 23 lbs. This one was close maybe 18-19. My fugitive has a self timer. 10 seconds.  But its auto focus is not too quick in low light.
FM

[brownmk19]

Great Fish! Absolute giant. I too was curious as to the weight of some of my bigger channel cats last season so this year I bought a good quality digital scale. I tried it out this spring and it worked pretty well. In my experience, any cat over 24" gives you one hell of a battle to the boat, even with heavier tackle. I bet that was a tough one to coax to the boat..........

I don't have much time as a die hard channel catter..........but that's the biggest channel cat out of our river that I've ever seen. Nice work.