Fishing report from: Bill & Steve

A good week’s catfishing with four big cats to 115lbs!

This week we welcomed Bill & Steve (aka the catfish brothers 😊) to the venue for another crack at our monster moggies. If you’ve read one of my reports from their previous trips you’ll know that they only target the catfish with traditional cat fishing methods which are very selective. 

They also use really strong gear that’s actually designed for big game fishing. Their rods are rated at a casting weight of 10oz and have a test curve of 7-8lbs. Reels are similarly specified with drag setting of 30-40lbs. It’s serious gear for serious anglers and during the summer, it’s absolutely appropriate for the venue if you want to bank a monster!

Temperature and oxygen

The last two trips have been very tough for the boys with roasting hot temperatures making the fishing difficult/nigh on impossible. This year the weather gods were much kinder with water temperatures in the low 20s and oxygen around 6mg/l as a morning low. Perfect fishing weather for carp or catfish. As always the boys were going to use a range of tactics including pellet bags, 50mm boilies and an anchor live bait suspended off the bottom via a float. 

A cat a day

It’s always fun to catch multiple fish in a day but sometimes, all we need to keep the fires lit is one fish a day and that’s how the fishing turned out for the guys. The fish came on the live bait rigs from open water and all the takes were in the evening up until 1am in the morning. The brothers do not sleep out overnight, preferring the comfort of the lodge. They normally knock it on the head at around 2am and then have a long lie in to recharge before going again after lunch. The guys didn’t get going until Sunday and they never fish Friday night which gives them 5 attempts. They caught one good specimen on 4 nights but missed on Thursday which was effectively their last try.

A new PB

Bill has caught some monsters before but this year he was able to up his PB to 115lbs. Even with his gear, experience and strength, Bill told me that it was easily the hardest fight he’d ever had with a fish. It took him about 20 minutes to land which is about half the time it would take an angler on heavy carp gear. This year, they landed all the cats they hooked but they did have a number of runs that they couldn’t rig up.

Well done guys, it was an absolute pleasure as always to see you enjoy the place so much and we can’t wait to see you bank more of our monsters next year!