Fishing and waterways

Didn't have the right line for the pike. Mark my words, it was big!

 

Ok, time for my “one that got away” story.
Sat in a kayak on White oak bay (just off the Cumberland river) fishing fairly light stuff looking for bass, nothing happening. Wife and her mate pulling in Blue gills for fun on the shore. I decided to use chicken liver to go fo catfish, nothing happening. Paddled back towards shore, told the wife I’m coming in and suddenly rod starts moving. Bloody fish on. Long slow fight and the line snaps. A bit pissed off but then I see I am about 200 yards off the shore. What size of fish pulls me and the kayak nearly 200 yards into the river? Tell you what, I’m sort of glad it did come off because I almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to “land”it. Anyway, no picture, so I guess it never happened. Oh, and in keeping with the “smutty” nature of the earlier threads, I accessed the river from Bald kangaroo Road.
( the address is not kangaroo, it begins kn**)

 

I'm sure you'll still be able to perform with half a pollock m8.

 

Hitler only had one and It didn’t do him any harm.

 

Or the finest player to wear a number 6 England shirt

 

Catfish, definitely. Too far inland for any of the others. You’ll see “noodling” on YouTube, where the natives catch catfish barehand. Seems to be a southern states thing. I seem to remember that Jeremy bloke off River Monsters doing it, crazy. Caught a few fishing from the shore but anything over 10lb goes back. It’s an arbitrary thing but anything over that size will taste of mud and generally be awful to eat. Then we have to consider the mercury issue too. You can get a couple of decent fillets off the smaller ones but eating catfish will never beat proper fish! Believe it or not, in Tennessee, catfish is probably the most popular fish for eating. Plenty of all you can eat catfish places. Biggest restaurant (and I use that term loosely- they don’t sell any alcohol, the look on my brother in law’s face when he asked for the wine list was priceless, mind the the waitress was equally puzzled that someone would want wine with a meal)in this town is The Catfish House and it is big, probably seats over 150.
Thinking about it, it’s probably twice the size of Murgatroyd’s, which I managed to visit last month when I was over. So as far as fishing goes, it will just be rainbow trout on the Caney Fork river for me nowadays. Trips to Florida have been abandoned due to need to travel back to UK as and when possible (to see mother).

 

??

 

Pollock is the only fish I don't eat. Not to my taste.

 

That's how you get a cod ling!

 

Bought my lad a couple of books for Christmas (charity shop buys).

 

@Craven Cottager
Did you catch any pike today ??
Had a walk along the local canal at lunchtime
Lots fishing for them but all were blanking

 

Same here. No pike today. Tried method feeding for a couple of hours too, but no luck there either.

 

Bit of winter fishing at Raygill. Very quiet, but managed a mirror and a common in 4 hours. Caught on squid.

 

Well done
Still a bit too cold for me
Did you see the enormous Pike
Bet he/she would have liked a bit of squid too

 

No sign of the big fella.