"...this
was one of the best nights I have had in
49 years of fishing!"
"Daniel,
The attached pictures show a little bit of my success using
the "Catfish Fishing Secret Weapon" the first time.
The attached pictures are of a Striped Bass I caught the first
evening. I was fishing at 1 am near the mouth of the Merrimac
river, in Massachusetts, from a boat while we were anchored
with the "Catfish Fishing Weapon" rigged in the bow
of the boat. I had already caught four fish 18-20 pounds (which
makes this the most successfull trip I have ever had at this
time of the year) when something hit my port side line. I had
a light to medium action 7' spinning outfit with 25 pound test
line. This fish just took off and started peeling line off.
When I picked the rod up it was bent almost double (glad it
was a ugly stick or it might have broken). At first I thought
it was a shark because it made no hint of stopping. I tightened
the drag on three separate occasions because it looked like
it would "spool me" anyway. Finally it stopped peeling
line and just stopped. For at least a minute I could not move
it. I thought the fish had snagged something on the bottom.
When my wife shined a flashlight on my reel I saw I had about
50 yards of line left on the spool (I could see the bottom of
the spool in a few places. This means the fish had 200 yards
of line out. Finally by keeping the rod bent in a large U I
was able to begin reeling line in. Three more times after that
this fish got a "second wind" and started peeling
10-20 yards off the line at the newer, much, higher drag setting.
It took me almost 40 minutes to get the fish to the boat. This
fish was 43 inches long and weighed 35 pounds. To put the fish
into perspecitve I am 260 pounds and 6'6" tall. You can
see it had not been feeding much yet (it is an rriving spring
run fish) but it was very healthy and strong. It would probably
weigh 6-8 pounds more in a few weeks after feeding heavily on
herring and other bait fish. Later in the evening I caught 3
more fish of equal size which I wanted to release so I was not
able to weigh and photograph them. Also I had one additional
fish on that I could not turn, peeled most of my line off and
eventually lost (the monster that got away!). Needless to say
this was one of the best nights I have had in 49 years of fishing!!
Thank you,
Jim McCarthy"
