Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I picked up Curly at .0600 and it was a crisp 24 degrees out! By the time we got to Doug's house around 0630, it had warmed up to 28 degrees. But the radio said it was 33 degrees at Reagan National Airport and that's where we were headed.

We met up with Jeff and Matt at the ramp and after letting the bass Club have their shotgun start, we headed up river.

Since this was my 1st time using the new electronics, we played around a bit to figure out things like speed and sensitivity. We even trolled a bit in front of the Kennedy Center but got no hits although we saw lots of marks which could have been shad, herring or perch.

Along the way to Fletcher's, we saw some nice marks of bait but without being familiar with the new fish finder, it was hard to tell what it was. many an argument was had as to whether we were seeing rocks, bait or schools of fish!

We got up to the white sign and anchored close to Jeff and Matt and instantly, they hooked up and showed us a nice 12 pound blue cat.



We set our baits (used mullet, spot and shrimp) and started the wait.

Jeff hooks up again.....



and lands another decent blue cat!



We are happy for them but frustrated because we had not had a hit! Jeff and Matt headed back downriver while we went upriver a bit to the "animal" hole. Nothing doing there so we decided to head downriver where we caught up to Jeff and Matt as they proceeded to catch another nice cat!



Finally, we started catching perch! I caught one on a sabiki rig with a sliver buddy on the bottom....



And then Doug on a silver buddy....



And then Curly caught a teeny one but didn't want his picture taken!



I got him to finally show me the perch!



A few moments later, one of the rods goes down and Curly nabs the rod and a fight ensues. he said he had a nice fish on and sure enough, we landed (by hand) this nice 15 pound blue cat!!



Doug then caught a 10 inch perch!



He also caught one on an "old time" rig, the kind Carl and I used in the mid 80's!



Then....we looked over as Matt knocked Jeff down to grab a rod that was doubled over. Apparently, it was Jeff's turn but Matt disregarded the rules and started to fight a beast! I did not get a picture so Jeff will have to post the near 40 pounder that Matt caught!

We ended up catching only the one cat but we did manage 35 white perch (earliest we have caught this many). Curly led the way with 18 or 19.   While we did not keep any, we could have had a nice fish fry as we caught 6-8 that were in the 8-10 inch range!

It was a great day, not too cold and some great company. The season has started!!