Channel Catfish

This nice channel catfish was caught by a friend of mine using a bullhead while bank fishing. At this point in my fishing adventures I did not have boat and was growing very frustrated with bank fishing. The area we were fishing is on an outside bend and there are rocks along the entire length of the bank to prevent erosion. So that means snag city and I was losing rig after rig. The main channel is on this side of the river and the current is very strong. I did not even know that 8-oz sinkers were something that existed. One of the most common rookie mistakes is the desire to cast your bait as far as possible. This is a huge mistake in the Missouri river because the current will sweep all that line down the river and bring it back to the bank. All that line is going to get snagged in something. I was making that rookie mistake and my partner a more experienced fisherman quickly alerted me to my grievous error. He told me “you don’t need to cast that far out and stop casting upstream”. His theory is you should cast downstream to where you want to be and perhaps only five to 7 feet out, sometimes even shorter.

The Master Showed The Student

My friend then demonstrated his technique with a pole baited with a live bullhead. He walked 40 yards downstream from my fishing spot and simply casted downstream five to seven feet out and quickly tightened his line so it would not sweep into a snag. As he was walking back towards me I saw his pole dancing and I yelled out “I think something is on that pole”. He turned back and quickly returned. I was amazed when he started fighting the fish. I learned several things from this event. First, I have to get me some live bullhead to fish with. Second, there are fish very near the bank looking for smaller fish to eat and you don’t have to cast as far as you can. I don’t bank fish anymore but it was a lesson I engrafted into my cerebellum.