Monster catfish

Last night Chuck and I went catfishing in Mendota over by Tenney Park. Armed with chicken livers and nightcrawlers, we each threw 2 lines out into the water around sundown to see what we could catch. Not long after we got there, a young guy was pulling in a 8-10 lb channel cat, so we were optomistic about our chances. Just a few minutes later, Chuck got a hit and it was big! He was using 8 lb line and a fairly small pole, and whatever was on the other end decided it wanted to fight. It took probably 10 minutes to get it up to the shore - a monster channel cat! Some passerbys had a scale and weighed it at 14 lbs.



I was hoping for a monster of my own, but I had to settle with something a bit smaller. My chicken liver didn't get a bite all night, but I soon hooked up on a small bullhead on my nightcrawler. Please excuse the overly cheesy smile. :D



As the night continued on, I caught 1 more bullhead and Chuck caught 3. We took all 5 home, where they are chilling out in my spare aquarium until we clean them tonight. (The channel cat was released.)

Memorial Day weekend

Hit up the Yahara again on Saturday, more to enjoy the fine weather than to actually fish. The bass were biting more than the day before. I caught 4 largemouths and had several come off the hook. I finally caught my freshwater drum under the bridge. I took it home and breaded and fried the fillets. People consider drum a trash fish, but I say who cares, they taste pretty darn good when they're fried in butter!

Under the bridge

With the water temperature rising (about 57 deg F now), the fish have moved back into the Yahara from Lake Monona. I spent the late afternoon by the first bridge, seeing what there was to see and enjoying the weather. The water is very clear, and I was able to see quite a few different species of fish:

Largemouth bass (caught 1)
Rock bass (caught 1)
White bass (saw near the bridge)
Bluegill (saw all over)
Carp (saw all over)
Freshwater drum (saw near the bridge)
Logperch (caught 16)
Muskie (saw by the opening of the lake)
Green sunfish (caught 1)

I took the rock bass and a couple of the logperch home for the aquariums. As of this morning the rock bass is doing fine in the big tank with the other sunfish and bass, and 2 of the logperch are being quite active in the darter tank and ate bloodworms that I feed to the darters.

Fishing from Terry's boat

What a great weekend! Terry brought his new boat to Madison to fish Mendota all weekend, and we definitely made the most of it.

Friday night - Launched the boat around sundown and fished the bay north of picnic point. Each caught a northern on crankbaits in 10 ft of water. (no pictures)

Saturday morning - Got up early and hit the water at 7am. The wind was pretty strong from the northwest, so we trolled the north shore of Mendota with the same crankbaits in 12 ft of water. Terry caught a big smallie and 2 northerns, and I caught 2 northerns followed by a 16.5" walleye.







Saturday night - The wind was starting to die down. We basically did a repeat of Friday night only on the south side of picnic point. Terry and I each caught a largemouth and a northern. I lost 3 or 4 fish because I didn't set the hook very well. Need to work on that!





Sunday day - No fish, but holy smokes was it a gorgeous day!

Darters feeding (video)

Here's the new set up. The third tank will be for feeder minnows. Haha, I just noticed in the picture that both bass and one of the sunfish are quite interested in the darters. They must be able to see them through the glass. Oh man that's going to be torture.

Darter tank

Set up a darter tank with some fish I caught in a stream by my parents' house in central Illinois. The majority of the darters seem to be orangethroats (originally thought to be rainbows). There's also one fantail darter and a southern redbelly dace. They are all very entertaining! I'll get a video of them feeding and put it up here. It's quite the show!