[duster066]

I've fished my whole life but never got any good at it until I grew up. I lived in Idaho for ten years and got pretty good at fly fishing in streams for trout, or at least I thought I was good. I came here and couldn't catch squat. I began to doubt myself until the locals told me all the streams are pretty much fished out near the Seattle area. Lots of nice salmon are taken from the rivers when they run, but I've never spent any time figuring out how to do it. I lost interest in fishing 10 or 11 years ago. I was thinking about tooling up again and giving the streams another try this year. I found my old fly rod, but have nothing else left because the kids used it all up. Cowboy shooting comes first, then hunting...fishing might have to wait another year.

 

[duster066]

I love fresh fish and always loved to fish. But fishing a stream, especially here, is pretty hard work and not much fun if I'm not catching anything. When I started hunting for bears I learned to navigate through these dense woods without getting lost. That will make stream fishing easier and I would like to try again. Last year I found a perfect stream while tracking a bear. There is no way it's getting much pressure where I was at.

 

[duster066]

Being from Kansas I know what you mean, but I love catfish. There are guys out here that have always considered them junk fish. They usually change their mind after one taste.

 

[duster066]

That sounds great. I just discover Cayenne pepper about a year ago. That stuff adds taste and zip to almost anything. It works great on Salmon.

 

[duster066]

If you can't catch catfish in Texas you need to watch more Outdoor Channel.

 

[duster066]

I do.

I've been hooked (lol) on River Monsters.

I want to try noodling. Looks like a blast.

My grandpa and uncles were noodlers. When I was a kid they'd bring home 40 50 60 pounders, and the thought of just being in the water with those things scared me. The biggest cat I've caught was a 10 pounder. But I've caught gillions of the good eating smaller ones.

My greatest claim to fishing fame is I caught two sturgeons while in Idaho. One of them was about a 5 footer the other closer to 3. I was a good boy and didn't even take them from the water. One day I was fishing for trout with light tackle and hooked into a third sturgeon. He played with me for about 5 minutes then just flicked his head and went on his way.

 

[duster066]

I'm still afraid to go in water where critters bigger than me live. I'm sure we've all heard the horror stories of divers inspecting the base of dams and coming across truly LARGE fresh water fish, usually cat fish.

To catch large cats you have to fish for them. They like deep pools close to shallow water, in rivers and lakes. You need to use large heavy tackle and bait with larger live bait fish. Perch work real good. Folks used to catch 60 to 80 pounders out of a lake near Wichita from the bank. They would catch Bluegills for bait during the day. Then take the line out with boats at dusk and drop them into known pools. They then sat all night waiting and getting drunk. There were two or three news worthy cats a month taken from that smaller lake.

 

[duster066]

My grandpa would take the heads from any cat greater than 40 pounds and stick them on his fence posts to show everyone who the best damn fisherman was. His fence posts where always full, and there were always fresh ones. Sometimes it stunk around there though.