Hit the waters early about 4:15. I wanted to try for Catfish (Bullheads). I have never targeted them specifically, but I have accidentally caught one here before, around 16” or so with a 4-5” diameter body with a night crawler, and a lot of the old timers tell me there are a lot of cats in the water. The fishing gods were not with me. I had knot problems, bait problems, casting problems, etc…; nothing says it’s not going to go well as looking at chicken livers dangling from a tree. All in all, I learned a lot about fishing in the dark and have a better plan on my next adventure. I tried chicken livers cured with garlic, but I think on my next trip I am going to use cut bait, specifically Sunfish that I have previously caught out of this same body of water.

After the sun had risen high enough, I figured I might as well scrap the Catfish idea and at least salvage some of my time and pride so I switched to targeting LMB using my grasshopper popper. They weren’t actively surface feeding but I know this grasshopper drives them crazy. Worked like magic in a matter of minutes I was getting bites, nothing big, all were around 8-9” I forget the total amount caught but I felt a little better and more determined to get this Catfish business right.

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