Lots of Catfish!

I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks, so I've missed a couple of posts.  We were at the lake in Missouri - swimming, boating, golfing, and fishing.

Fish tend to be inactive when the weather - and water - gets as hot as it does in Central Missouri in August.  Fortunately, this time of year is great for catching catfish!

Most of the Cats we caught were Blue Catfish

None of them were nearly as big as this one!

There are tons of catfish in Lake of the Ozarks.  Although we've caught channel cats and flathead cats, we've caught more - and bigger - Blue Catfish.  Blue cats can exceed 100 pounds, although huge ones like that are relatively rare.  Fish in the 30 to 50 pound range are not uncommon, but most of the fish we catch are of modest size - from 2 to 5 pounds or so, with an occasional one that may be close to 10 pounds.  A couple of years ago, we caught one that must have been around 30 pounds - a real monster in my book.

Unlike some other fish, catfish don't mind the heat.  They'll be a little deeper when it's really hot - we caught most of our fish between 15 and 25 feet below the surface.  Catfish will eat a variety of bait - night crawlers, minnows, and cut bait.  One of the best bait is cut shad - blues can't seem to resist it.

We fish with a rod and reel, of course, and we probably caught about half the fish that way.  We also fish for catfish with jug lines, or what we call "noodling".  We cut 12" pieces of "fun noodles" (foam swim aids), and tie a 25' line on the end.  We bait the hook, then throw about 30 of these set ups in the water and wait for them to pop.  When a fish hits them, the end pops up in the air - a large blue will take them completely under water!  Once they start to move, we catch them with the boat and haul them in.  It's a different way to fish, but it's fun and you usually catch a few fish.

I still prefer to catch fish the old-fashioned way, with a rod and reel, but I enjoy using the noodles, too.  Using the noodles allows us to increase our catch, and fill up the freezer so we can enjoy fish all year long.

How much success did we have?  I'm not the world's greatest fisherman, but over the three days that Liz and Carter were visiting, I cleaned about 40 catfish.  Since most of them were blues, we were close to catching our limit of five blues apiece per day (just three of us were fishing).

I always fillet our fish, so we can avoid all the bones.  Theresa soaks them in egg, rolls them in potato buds (I know, sounds crazy, but it's good), and fries them.  Few things in life are better then fried fish straight from the lake!