Matt Raida from Florida has been working a job in Chattanooga a few months. His Mom and Dad came down from Cleveland, Ohio to hang out a few days. Matt and his Dad wanted to sample the fishing. On Sunday I was happy to oblige.
We started out drifting shiners beneath Chickamauga Dam and it was either the first or second drift that Frank hooked up, and as he fought his fish Matt's rod loaded up. Since Frank had his fish first I was paying more attention to him. It took him a while on light tackle, but he fought a 15 or 16-inch smallmouth to the boat. I netted that fish and turned around to check on Matt. Great googly... his fish was still WAY upstream and still taking spurts of line.
I figured it was a good catfish, even though Matt insisted the fish made one big jump while I wasn't looking. It took a LONG time but he got the fish boatside .... lo and behold, it was an awesome smallmouth. The biggest that's been in my boat in a long time. It was a smidgen more than 21-inches long and a 16-inch girth. My spring-loaded scales put it at six lbs.
The sad part is that Matt really hasn't fished a whole lot and never smallmouth fished. He had no idea what a magnificent catch he'd made. I tried to impress otherwise, but I fear he'll go home figuring you're supposed to catch a six-pound smallmouth everytime you go out. For the record, the fish is back swimming.
We caught a few other smaller fish on shiners, including a striper but the shiner bite slowed as the sun came up so we switched to cats.
They were in an excellent mood... especially the channel cats. Some big channels fought nearly as hard as the smallmouth. Matt caught a 7 lb. channel that I would have sworn was going to be a 20 lb. blue until he got him to the boat.
We fished until Noon and figured we put 20 or 25 catfish in the boat. It was a great trip, which means life is good and gettin' better every day!
We started out drifting shiners beneath Chickamauga Dam and it was either the first or second drift that Frank hooked up, and as he fought his fish Matt's rod loaded up. Since Frank had his fish first I was paying more attention to him. It took him a while on light tackle, but he fought a 15 or 16-inch smallmouth to the boat. I netted that fish and turned around to check on Matt. Great googly... his fish was still WAY upstream and still taking spurts of line.
I figured it was a good catfish, even though Matt insisted the fish made one big jump while I wasn't looking. It took a LONG time but he got the fish boatside .... lo and behold, it was an awesome smallmouth. The biggest that's been in my boat in a long time. It was a smidgen more than 21-inches long and a 16-inch girth. My spring-loaded scales put it at six lbs.
The sad part is that Matt really hasn't fished a whole lot and never smallmouth fished. He had no idea what a magnificent catch he'd made. I tried to impress otherwise, but I fear he'll go home figuring you're supposed to catch a six-pound smallmouth everytime you go out. For the record, the fish is back swimming.
We caught a few other smaller fish on shiners, including a striper but the shiner bite slowed as the sun came up so we switched to cats.
They were in an excellent mood... especially the channel cats. Some big channels fought nearly as hard as the smallmouth. Matt caught a 7 lb. channel that I would have sworn was going to be a 20 lb. blue until he got him to the boat.
We fished until Noon and figured we put 20 or 25 catfish in the boat. It was a great trip, which means life is good and gettin' better every day!
