Time: Morning
Air Temperature: 63 - 79 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 74 degrees
Lake Level: 555.85' - 51,566 cfps - Perfect conditions
Weather Conditions: A little choppy & overcast, clearing as day goes. S-SE winds 4-10 mph.
Doug and Douglas joined me on Friday afternoon to bait and prepare lines. They had never run full scale lines, so I knew they would have a blast. These are the lines they helped me hand build over the spring.
We ran 100 hooks per person, which is allowed by law. We started by running down towards Courtland and dropping a 100 hook line below the bluffs and across the mouth of a little inlet. This one was baited 100% chicken gizzards and was in about 24 FOW. We put the next one N-S between the island and shore in Mallard Creek. We baited this one with live bait and it was a 50 hook line placed in 9 FOW. We put the third line (100 hooks) on the flats behind my house and baited it with cut bait and gizzards. We put the final 50 hook line behind the big island by Cowford landing in 6 FOW and baited it with miscellaneous gizzards, cut bait, and whatever we had left over.
We were on the water by 7:00 AM on Saturday morning and started with the line at Cowford. We pick up 5 fish off this line and it was a pretty normal run. We did pick up one that weighed in at around 20 lbs and took a picture and turned it loose.
The next line we ran was the one in Mallard Creek. Our intent was to target flatheads on this line with live bait in shallow water. We knew we wouldn't catch a lot on this line, but was hoping for something big. We ended up catching 2-3 channels but nothing giant. It still was a good run.
The 3rd line we pulled was the one in the flats behind my house. This one did really well and caught one flathead and mix of channels and blues. I believe we pulled in around 6-8 fish off this long line.
The final line we pulled was the one towards Courtland below the bluffs. This one was HOT!. We caught fish nearly every hook for the first 5-6 hooks and picked up fish throughout the entire length of the line. Both end of the line were very heavy with fish and kept us hopping for a few minutes. This line pulled in 20-22 nice fish and was an absolute blast. It was an awesome way to end the day!
In total, we ended up with 38 catfish caught. We had turned the biggest fish loose immediately and then took to deep water for a photo op and to cull what we had kept. We caught more fish than we needed, so we took photos and turned loose the smallest and largest of what we had. We kept around 16 fish for the freezer. Overall, it seemed gizzards did the best, followed by cut bait. Deep water did the best and fish consistently were on hooks nearest the weights across all lines. As a learning point, I will probably sink all lines in the middle from now on when running deeper than about 12-14 FOW.
We had an awesome time and I believe Doug and Douglas got a good feel for trotlining. I think we are all ready to do it again! Our lines were all 100% hand made and I'm proud of everyone that helped us build these this spring as they proved they can produce.
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