RIVER MONSTERS! James River Catfish

I've always loved catfishing, Its pretty much what got me hooked on fishing, when I was a kid there was a place called "The pipe" It was a large pipe that crossed a creek back in the woods that you could sit on and fish. Me and the other kids would go to fish mostly for small bullheads with worms. When I became older I still loved catfishing, especially during the Rockfish moritorium, catfish were not only plentiful but good fighting.  I rarely ever target them anymore, but thats only because I still catch plenty of them while casting lures for other species, and they still bring a smile to my face everytime I get one.
But theres one catfish that I always wanted to catch, the Big Blue catfish. years ago I would read fishing magazines about Blues in the Mississippi river, some as big as 100lbs! Then about 1990 I started reading about them showing up in good numbers in the James river near Richmond va,  The possibility of me one day catching a monster catfish started to seem even more plausible, but every year would pass by and I never got around to targetting them. This year I finally decided to check one more thing off my bucket list. I thought about trailering my boat and targetting them on my own, but I thought a guide my be a better option. It really doesn't cost that much more when you consider the price of gas you burn in the boat, plus wear and tear on the trailer and boat. plus its much less work, not to mention the odds of success are better. So I booked a trip with Josh Fitchett   River Cat'n Guide Service.
I could tell right away he knew his stuff just by how effortlessly he would fling the baits with level-wind reels, he looked like he's done a few thousand times before.
The setup he used was basically a fishfinder rig with a chunk of Gizzard shad. One thing that I thought was surprising was the areas where we caught the fish. Im not going to be to specific, so not to burn anyones spots, but I thought we would be fishing warmwater discharges, but instead we fished mostly areas where you would think they would be in spring, summer and fall. From a inexperienced Blue catfishermen, I think they seem to favor Deep water with structure. especially where shallow water meets deep water, some of the spots were so small it was surprising such big fish could be there.
We tried about ten different spots and caught fish at every spot except one. A total of 15 fish were caught, 10 were citations over 30lbs, the biggest being 49lbs! The smallest was caught on corn ment for Carp. I read about James river carp and Rockfish and Capt Josh let me experiment a little with my light tackle rod. I Didn't get any carp or Rock but we did pull up a Rock ( about 30") in in the net while catching our bait in the morning. Even the smaller Catfish were pretty big to me. Its funny to pull up a 15/20lb fish and Capt Josh calls it a little one. I think that river is spoiling him a little :)


It was a pretty cool experience, the River has some nice scenery, if your used to boating the Upper chesapeake where the shoreline has either a house or building everywhere you look, its strange to run miles down the James and rarely seeing a house, just trees as far as the eyes can see. Like being back in time
Here's Capt Joshs website http://www.rivercatn.com/