[BigEd]

Saturday morning I was on Zoar around 6:30am fishing one of the coves and targeting a couple of fallen trees staying closer to shore and limiting depths to about 10'. I started tossing wacky rigged worms letting them fall between the underwater limbs and bouncing 3" tubes from shore to under the boat with only small fish being caught. I started snagging up real bad so I decided to drift out a little further to about 14' of water. I then opened up a new bag of Kietech 5" Shad Impacts in AYU color. I remember buying them and the owner of Newtown Bait & Tackle asked me if I liked them better than the swing impacts, said I never tried them so I will give them a shot. I was a little concerned because they don't have nearly the tail action like the swings do and have a straight tail instead of a swim tail design. I put one on an Owner twistlock and checked the action over the side of the boat. There things are pretty awesome, when they fall they stay horizontal and just shimmy side to side like a fish having an epileptic fit. When you twitch it they dart smoothly side to side and just stop and fall again. Now I was ready for ole bucket mouth. I tossed it out and let it sink for a minute and started giving it some gentle twitches, letting it fall after each. I retrieved about 10' of line and give a twitch only to have the line stop. I give a tug and pause...nothing. I'm thinking there goes another hook offered to the log gods. All of a sudden the drag starts screaming and the pole bends over like crazy. I have no idea what this is since there is no head shaking or charge to the surface run, just pulling and resistance. I even thought it might be a large turtle. No way was I going to just muscle it up on 6 lb line. About 3 minutes later I am able to make out it was a huge white catfish. Finally get it to the surface and couldn't figure out how to get it out of the water since I didn't have a net. I let it run a couple of times to tire it out some more and grab the pliers to get the hook out. I tried grabbing it around the head but no way, I couldn't get my hand over the top of it and wasn't going to risk getting stung by the pectoral fins/spines. While it was horizontal next to the boat I measured it against my arm for reference, knuckles to elbow and that only reaches the middle of the anal fin on this thing. This was easily a 22"-24" fish! I never expected that and it totally caught me off gaurd. I think the squid scent and wounded fish action of the Kietech certainly played a role in this catch. I never really targeted catfish but I'll tell you what, after that I can assure you I'll be dropping more stinky baits onto the bottom every once in a while! Whew! I'm still excited.

[NorthEastFisherman]

Awesome!!! I never wouldve even thought there were catfish in zoar. Did you take a picture?
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YouTube Channel: NorthEastFisherman

[jjbassfishn]

I second a picture, Never seen one myself. Sounds like a fun fight.
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PB LMB 9.3LBS Winchester Lake
PB SMB 5.8LBS Colebrook Res.
PB Pike 3.85LBS Winchester Lake

Can't catch em sittin on the sofa!

[NorthEastFisherman]

Ive caught them before. But that was back in virginia. Catfish are great fighters!
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YouTube Channel: NorthEastFisherman

[BigEd]

I wish I got a picture. Cell phone was in the glove box of the boat and I was trying to figure out how to handle the fish, trying not to snap the line or get stung by the thing. My wife yelled at me for not getting one. From what I've read 24" is about the max for whites, this fish was definitely in that range. I went back to the same spot tonight with my daughter to try bottom fishing and drop shotting the kietechs. Just got home, no luck, but we did land a couple of decent smallmouth and it was a beautiful night to be out.

[NorthEastFisherman]

You can grab them by the mouth i think. Too bad you didnt get a picture!
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YouTube Channel: NorthEastFisherman

[rxpxtx]

That's freakin outstanding. You can lip 'em, but they'll put the clamp on your thumb....and there's a hook in there somewhere! I ran into a pile of stocked whites at that sh*t hole lake wintergreen in Hamden, but they were just off the truck and wouldnt bite bait that was hitting them in the head. The albino are channels.
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Dave..... I can be a pain in the bass.

[Michael]

I wonder how close you would have been to the current state record if you had landed it and gotten a weight

[BigEd]

Michael I have no idea. I just checked and the record is over 11lbs, I'm not sure how close to that I would have been. I never had the fish out of the water so I really cant tell. Oh well, looking back maybe I should have kept it but I wasn't even thinking about that stuff while all this happened. It totally caught me off guard when all I was hoping for was a decent bass that morning. I had no idea that this was a very good size white until I started doing research after getting home. Anyway, I feel better about releasing the fish. He's still out there

[jjbassfishn]

[mikey5string]

Nice. I caught my first catfish ever on a green pumpkin senko just messing around in a little cove right next to the parking lot at Maltby Lakes. It was a bullhead. Nice fish but it had some funky infection. I got the hook out with pliers and shoved it back into the water with my foot.

I have heard of cats taking topwater lures, swimbaits, jigs.... Seem to be an opportunistic feeder. Anything in range that looks edible.

I'd love to see a white cat. I am going to have to google it to see what they look like. I always carry a camera or at least my phone. I fish alone a lot and I would hate to catch a big or rare fish and have no way of documenting it. Even though fish always lose 2 lbs when you take the picture yourself ; )