Mattawoman Cats on Prez Day

[YakMan1731]

Pat (yakscientist) and I spent the morning at Mattawoman on Monday going for blue cats. We were both using top/bottom rigs and fish finder rigs, and both using chicken as bait. We got there early on a really high outgoing tide, and caught pretty much the entire outgoing. It was a nice morning with the forecasted winds never really materializing, which made anchoring and positioning of baits/kayaks quite easy. Temps also stayed quite pleasant.

We had consistent bites throughout the morning, putting a number of fish in our boats from lengths in the mid-teens up to a monster ~45" brute that took me for a ride. We got plenty in the 25"-30" range which is always a blast. At one point Pat was hooked up on 3 of his 4 rods, which was both incredibly exciting and really fun to watch as he navigated the glorious chaos. I think the third one ended up pulling off, but a few minutes later he hooked up again in that spot on that rig, so we decided he really went 3/3 on the simultaneous 3 rod hookup haha

The bite slowed a bit as the tide slowed, but we didn't ever fully hit a slump, getting constant bites and hookups with the longest wait between hookups being about a half hour. I think we ended with something around 19-20 fish between the two of us between 7am and 1pm. Thank the fish gods for the glorious winter catfish bite.

PB Cat 2.jpgPB Cat.jpg

[moc]

Nice going on the Cats. The outgoing tide always seems to yield the best bites. Did you catch them all by anchoring, or did you catch some drifting?

[YakMan1731]

Nice going on the Cats. The outgoing tide always seems to yield the best bites. Did you catch them all by anchoring, or did you catch some drifting?

We were anchored the entire time. I think with the speed of the tide and the various depths in that spot it would be really challenging to drift for them. I've never tried drifting though, so that's just my 2 cents!

[Mark]

Matt,

Holy cow that's a huge fish.

Congratulations!