THE YOUNG MAN THOUGHT HE WAS SNAGGED

By R.R. Shumway

Catdaddy's Catfishin Adventures

  My boy Jordan, who just turned eleven, and I went fishing for his birthday. He wanted to set some log and pole lines on the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. In hope of catching some trophy flatheads ranging from 50 - 70 pounds. So off we went.

  We got down on the river, set up camp, and got everything ready we needed for the big flatheads: 750 pound nylon braided line, 1500 pound hoop net swivels, some good tire inner tubes, and some 16/0 circle sea hooks. My boy had never seen such big gear. I told him anything less than that would be a fish story.

  I knew this would be the best time of the year to target big flatheads. I call it the fall frenzy feed time. The bigger fish ate on the move to fatten up for the winter. I know most people are out hunting at this time of the year and fishing is slowly coming to a halt, but not for me.

  We started out looking for wing dykes with deep scour holes on the far ends of the jetties. A real good place to set some bank poles. I took my 18-volt drill and rock bit, and drilled a hole in the big boulder to fit my 3/4-inch fiberglass pole into. Then I rigged my line onto the end of the pole and baited with a five to nine inch goldfish or a 3 - 5 pound river carp. Jordon was amazed at the size of bait I was using for these big fish.

  We set 8 pole lines out and boated down to where the mighty Kansas River came to join the Missouri. We were looking for dense structure like wood piles, log jams, even old car bodies that people use to put on the river banks to keep the high water from eroding the banks away. Areas like these are prime for big flatheads. The bigger and older the pile, the bigger the fish you will find lying up in there.

  My boy and I got 8 log lines set out in some really good looking wood jams along the Kansas river. We hung the same size bait on these lines, hoping to catch a monster flathead catfish. The day was long and we were ready to go back to camp, and eat dinner and turn in to get some sleep.

  The next morning my boy got me up when it was still dark and could not see anything at all. You could tell he was excited and could hardly wait for the sun to rise, so we had breakfast and started out on the river to check all the lines we had set out th day before.

The first 6 lines were empty, the gar got their fill for supper, we figured. The other two had small flatheads on them - a 20 pounder and about a 25 pounder.

 Jordon asked me how those small flatheads got such big bait in their mouths. So I grabbed one of those flats and opened its mouth. I told him,"Look at that, you could almost put a small soccer ball in the fish's mouth." He was real quiet for a while after he saw how big the flathead's mouth was.

  We got down to where we had set all the log lines in the wood piles and old car bodies along the Kansas River. To no surprise, the gar had a feast on our bait again. We pulled up on the pile of old driftwood and I told Jordan to lift the log line up real slow because I noticed it had a fan mark on the log where it had been moving back and forth. Something was on the line at one time or could still be.

  As he pulled the line up out of the water, it became very tight like it was caught on a log or something. I told him to pull as hard as he could. When he did, the line started to pull out of his hands. I knew right then he had a big ole flathead on the other end of that line. He was not snagged like he thought.

  That old fish took off like a freight train and banged around for five minutes, throwing water all over both of us. He came up to the top of the water, so we mouthed him with my hand. He was bigger than I thought. It took both hands of a grown man to get this fish in the boat.

  My boy could not believe what he was looking at. The flathead came in 79 pounds. Jordan said,"Look, Dad, you could put a basketball in his mouth". We took some good pictures and let the big flathead go back in the river.

  Jordan asked me why I let him go, and I told him,"So other kids like you can have fun catching one of those big old flatheads too."

R.R. Shumway

Catdaddy's Catfishin Adventures

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