planer boards & catfish on chicot

[randybenham]

Just got back from the chicot trip & wanted to post some results of experimenting planer boards. i installed some pole holders on the front of the boat. One of the things I read was you need to keep the rod tips high. Here is a shot of the Ms. manning the boards.


Here are the cranks that I used to troll with. I used 100 series bandits on the inside, and these grappler shads on the outside on the boards. i didn't really get particular about how much line I let out, I just let it out.



We trolled at 1 mph, and didn't catch any crappie, but we got their cousins the plentiful striped bass, & even caught a goo. I could tell when the goo hit it, the board went backwards, & the drag started stripping. no pics of the fish on the boards, but i'll try to keep trying until i perfect it. the article by jeff on trolling, suggested using med action rods. I used 10lb line, & the boards with the goo on it felt like a 6lb catfish trying to reel it in. I might use some heavier rods next time. I also had to reel in the inside rods when a fish got on the outside rods w/ boards. anyway, we caught fish, but were limited on time to try this technique. We trolled for about 2 hours, and managed 3 fish total. We caught them all on the grappler shads.



We took advantage of the shad run to do our trotlines, and did it pay off!! The shad run around 6am on the shoreline.


we caught enough to bait up our 5 trotlines, & harvested over 200 catfish on saturday. we had 400 hooks out. we caught so many catfish, that we pulled them out of the water on sunday, & had 66 quart sized bags of fish after a camp fish fry. One thing about chicot, it has too many catfish. before anyone says we over harvested, we had 14 people in camp, so we weren't being pigs about it. Here are my helpers, with my youngest screaming every time we took a fish off the hook. We also had fish on every other hook on saturday, & my electric fillet knife was on fire after the cleaning.




We had an awesome trip this year, but the crappie bite was slow. My dad & I caught several on the last day of the trip, & I'll post those pics on a different post when I get them from my uncle. We caught a lot of those pesky little striped bass & not even 1 green carp. (I fished w/ an uncle that likes to fish for them). We didn't even catch keeper crappie until today, & had to go on the south end of chicot to get them.
There are so many catfish in chicot that they've lifted the limits on cats, so if anyone needs catfish, you should go to chicot & get those things out of the lake. In contrast, chicot has imposed a 20 limit on crappie & they have to be over 10" to keep. I have a lot of concerns about the balance of fish concerning crappie & bass. No bass to speak of and too many dinks on the crappie. More pics coming!!

[randybenham]

One thing I wanted to mention was that I used circle hooks on half my trotline, & used kahle hooks on the other half. When the trotlines were checked frequently, there were no differences between the 2, or with my dads line which had regular trotline hooks on it. the only difference being his was in 5 feet of water & my line was in 8 ft. There was a difference in the overnite results though. After baiting up for the evening around 6 pm, we checked our lines the next morning, & I had twice as many fish on as everyone else on the circle hooks. That would be the only thing that I can say for sure that the circle hooks helped with. The catfishing was so white hot on saturday that we were sick of it. It was kind of like if your dad made you sit in a closet w/ 2 packs of cigarettes & you had to smoke them all in about 1 hour. you wouldn't want another one ever. That's how I feel about cleaning those things. My arm was worn out.

[KRAPPIE KG]

I fish Chicot quite often and I know what you mean about all the catfish, we usually catch all we want with crickets bream fishing. But that's all right with me, I like catfish and it always keeps us with fish. Those yellow bass can really be pesky when trying to crappie fish. Bass fishing has usually been good the last few years and caught some real nice crappie back in March. I'll be heading that way in a couple of weeks, I moved further off and can't get down there as much as I would like to. Glad you had a good time.

[Slipcork]

Great trip! I know what you mean about cleaning them. the kids cought 7 off the dock the other night. Never done that before. Did that all in about 3 hours. I hate cleaning them fish. I wish someone could tell me how to clean them faster.

I have heard about that "no smokin" program with 2 packs in a short time! Think it works.

[BamaFan]

Family fun! They will never forget it! Glad I did not have to clean those cats!

[gooch]

Awesome post Randy. I have read J Whites article a number of times and dont remember him suggesting having a pretty girls in the of the boat. Dont guess it could hurt anything but your ears.

Thanks for sharing your week of pics with us.

[NIMROD]

One thing I wanted to mention was that I used circle hooks on half my trotline, & used kahle hooks on the other half. When the trotlines were checked frequently, there were no differences between the 2, or with my dads line which had regular trotline hooks on it. the only difference being his was in 5 feet of water & my line was in 8 ft. There was a difference in the overnite results though. After baiting up for the evening around 6 pm, we checked our lines the next morning, & I had twice as many fish on as everyone else on the circle hooks. That would be the only thing that I can say for sure that the circle hooks helped with. The catfishing was so white hot on saturday that we were sick of it. It was kind of like if your dad made you sit in a closet w/ 2 packs of cigarettes & you had to smoke them all in about 1 hour. you wouldn't want another one ever. That's how I feel about cleaning those things. My arm was worn out.

WUSS :rolleyes: Come up and help dress Buffalo and Catfish when I put out nets. You need to hit Nimrod ,I been catching Crappie everyday for the last week. Seriously ,I under stand about being sick of dressing fish. I brought home 5 Crappie this week and gave away the rest.:D

[NIMROD]

Great trip! I know what you mean about cleaning them. the kids cought 7 off the dock the other night. Never done that before. Did that all in about 3 hours. I hate cleaning them fish. I wish someone could tell me how to clean them faster.

I have heard about that "no smokin" program with 2 packs in a short time! Think it works.

Dressing catfish is like anything else . It takes a good techniqe and plenty of practice. Every summer I take people out to fish baited holes and dress 20 to 50 lots of days. Of course it does'nt take long to clean a bunch if your knives are sharp. I use a regular old fillet knife and would'nt touch those electric ones.:D

[randybenham]

I did see some good info on cleaning catfish from www.catfishin.net . the guy cut his fillets off, skin on. He then used a pair of pliers (or skinners), held the tail, & used a very sharp fillet knife & slid down that fillet to take that skin right off. I tried to get my uncles to try it, but they couldn't adapt.

[NIMROD]

I did see some good info on cleaning catfish from www.catfishin.net . the guy cut his fillets off, skin on. He then used a pair of pliers (or skinners), held the tail, & used a very sharp fillet knife & slid down that fillet to take that skin right off. I tried to get my uncles to try it, but they couldn't adapt.

Clean just like scaled fish, cut the skin off with the knife. Results are great, 2 fillets and a carcass.