Wilson Meow 7/5

[Shady]

Fished the Wilson Bridge for Cats this AM for a few hours. The bite was pretty good and I went through the 2 chicken breast that I brought pretty quickly. I probably caught about 20 cats, but most were sort of smallish, with only seven over 20". However, I did catch one pretty large one that is my new PB Bluecat and largest fish caught on my kayak. His tail extended well past the end of my Hawg Trough so I'll estimate 34-35".
Giant Bluecat 4.jpgGiant Bluecat.jpgDSCN5522.jpg
Once I ran out of chicken, I tried sort of jigging a gulp swimming mullet on my catfish rig. First fish to bite hit before the bait even hit the bottom and screamed off some line. I fought the fish for a good few minutes before it came off. My 3/0 Gamakatsu was bent at a right angle and my line had a nice coating of catfish slime on it... I regrouped and dropped the swimming mullet again and jigged it a little and got slammed again. This time I managed to bring a heavy 26 1/2" cat in the yak.
26 inch Bluecat 4.jpg26 inch Bluecat 2.jpg

[tufnik]

That thing is pretty big. Congrats!

[MetroMan]

Niceee!!!!

[sparky1423]

Nice river monster! I just emptied the last of my Blue Cat in the freezer...can't wait to hit the WW to stock up again.

[Snakehead Hunter]

Is Blue cat safe to eat? I tend to avoid all catfish in Potomac especially near DC.

[Shady]

I'm no expert, but I've been told that Blue catfish grow relatively quickly and so if you take the ones under 5 lbs they haven't been around long enough to build up a significant amount of toxins. I personally only like to keep the 2-3 pounders.

All that being said, today all Cats were turned lose to fight another day.

[bignose]

Where does one launch to fish the WW Bridge?
Belle Haven?

[Shady]

launch at Jones point park in Alexandria, its basically under the bridge.

[bignose]

Thank you!

[Sun]

Nice report. Catfish while jigging gulp, huh? You can take my title as cat man now

[HJS]

Shady - Did you catch enough cats on the gulp to verify that that gulp tended to catch bigger cats than chicken bait???

At Chain Bridge, Potomac at tideline --- When striper fishing at CB, really big bluecats often hit my soft plastics and has forced me to search for a new way to catch stripers there. My search has been in vein. What ever lure I use I hook into monster bluecats that I can't come close to stopping in the strong current there. I even switched up to 30# Fireline, 30# floro leader and heavy freshwater rod&reel. I eventually switched over to barbless jigs so, hopefully, the cats can eventually shake out the jigheads. I hate breaking off fish and leaving tackle in fish mouths.

[Shady]

Shady - Did you catch enough cats on the gulp to verify that that gulp tended to catch bigger cats than chicken bait???

I just decided to try it when I ran out of chicken. I hooked two on the gulp, the one that bent the hook and the 26.5" that I landed. The biggest one that I caught was on chicken and the one that broke off was also with chicken.

[Shady]

Nice report. Catfish while jigging gulp, huh? You can take my title as cat man now

Haha, I think Jim (Rockchaser) holds that title...

I was actually using sort of a tog rig for the catfish and so putting the gulp on the hook was almost like drop shotting. I am going to try this technique again in other locations....

[Sun]

Haha, I think Jim (Rockchaser) holds that title...

I was actually using sort of a tog rig for the catfish and so putting the gulp on the hook was almost like drop shotting. I am going to try this technique again in other locations....

Sounds like it might work with flounder... You gonna be in oc?

[chex]

That's a big cat! Congrats on the PB!