D and R Canal 7/13/2020

[CMA719]

Lots of excitement last night!

I decided to try the D and R Canal with my sons and a buddy of mine. If you've seen my other post, I've got two boys who are recently catfish crazy and dream of catching channels and -possibly- a flathead. My buddy was generous and took us and showed us the ropes a few weeks ago for channels at one of his spots, so we're now on a learning curve.

I recently purchased 3, 7 foot medium rods in case we actually ever did get on a flathead, but only 1 has been delivered. We spooled it with 50 lb braid and put an 8/0 hook on there and brought it with us along with our other (smaller) rods, which we had 6/0 hooks on and 15lb braid.

My boys drew numbers and my older son won, so he got to go first to bring in anything that hit on the big rod.

When we got there, my son threw a tube bait in and got a nice LMB (pictured-sorry I couldn't get the photo to upright) and a little while later he got another small YOY largemouth and some sunnies (green, pumpkinseed and bluegill). We threw the bluegill and green sunny in a bucket to live line later in the evening.

The bite was kind of slow and the turtles were leading the way with picking on our lines. We did manage to get one nice channel cat (pictured), a little over 3 lb. They really are beautiful fish!

Around 8:30 I livelined the green sunny and crossed my fingers. I had little confidence but kept in perspective that a dry hook catches no fish.

Nothing much happened for the next hour. At one point (around 9:35) one of my rod tips started dancing and I ended up bringing in a nice American eel (pictured).

Now that made a real mess because my braid from that rod got tangled up in another line, etc. By 9:45 we were all tired and packing it up to go. I almost forgot about the big rod a few feet away in the darkness. I was grumbling and fooling around with the mess that I made with the braided line when suddenly my little guy calls out "DAD!!".

The line from the big rod straightened out, the rod bent, and the drag started going. My older boy grabbed the rod and brought it in our first flathead ever! (pictured) We were all very excited about it, although I think I yelled louder than they did.

They were exhausted but all smiles on the way home. First thing this morning from my older boy's mouth after he woke up? "Dad, when are we going out for catfish again"?

Thanks for looking!