Wintertime James R Catfishing meet and greet

Guys, Hate that we all did not get to talk more. It was good meeting everyone. Hope we can do another Trip soon. Everyone will have to do a Bay Season Trip next year for Stripers also. I will post a picture of our biggest Cat (around 20lbs :eek:). Almost dont want too after looking at all the monsters that were caught. ;) We lost a big guy right at leaving time. The hook came out before we got to see him. I think that Pamarine had a Bannana in his pocket :mad:.......Joking
 
Buddy Mike standing sideways :D
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Biggest fish of the weekend :eek: Bigbirds boat in the background..
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Bigbird and Billy with there double header....:cool:
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Again
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Bigbird with his 42 pounder....
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Just rolled in

I just rolled in at 1am. Enjoyed the trip. Finally broke my PB of 39.5# with a 43#. It paled in comparison to one by Ace and one by Shep. I will let them tell the details and post up picture.
It was great seeing all of the triumphs on the river.
Two small ones friday-conditions not right. Blue bird skies. Saw plenty on s0nar but no big takers. New to the James so did some scouting late that paid off saturday.
Sat we had a half day window of good conditions but the cold front moved in mid-afternoon.
Awesome catfishery they have up there. We caught 14 overall on Sat. All the cats bellies were full-like they were going to bust(full of shad)
I really enjoyed meeting Jeremy, Mike, Ace, Ty, Frank, Shep and all friends.
Later,
Lindsay
 
Nice work guys! Looks like you had a great day on the water. Very cool idea getting Triumph owners together for fishing outings like this. It would be a great way to get a regional Triumph Owners Group going. :)
 
It was great to meet y'all. I had a blast out there and I definitely think we should start planning our next meet and greet. Ty, sorry I couldn't get you on some good fish. Shep, Another huge thank you for sharing your spot with us!

I wish I could've stayed longer and gone out to dinner with you guys, but the wife and baby wanted me home, so I had to go. Here are a few pics I got from Saturday:


My crew, Ty and his crew, Shep and his crew at Deep Bottom Saturday morning:

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Shep and his crew weighing in their 65 lb 12 oz beast:

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Billy's 28 lbr:
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Billy's 63 lbr:
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another picture

another picture from BillinSC of the 43# blue from my partner from Bennettsville, SC. He drove anohter 1.5 hour after we got to my house at 1am.

It was cool seeing all of the 190 bays on the river. I think people were thinking they were seeing double.
I am ready to go again now.
 

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JB's boat

Bill took a good picture of BoostJunkie's boat.
 

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Triumph's Attack on James...

What an awesome trip. How cool was it to be at the ramp with all those 190 Bays!!!We definitely need to do another one soon. I hated leaving early...could have stayed there all night telling stories with you guys. Glad everyone made it home safe.

Ended up with the best day we have had on the James in my boat. We lost count of the number we caught but the list went something like this....65,48,43,39,38,31,30(3),19,15,12,7. Ok, maybe we didn't lose track. Prior to this trip I thought you had to fish deeper water in the winter to catch big fish but that was far from the case. What a blast catching a big fish in shallow water, I didn't know those big fish could move so fast or would break the water like they did. The fish were definitely in a feeding frenzy, probably due to cold front that move in last night. The 19lb fish we caught had 2 big shad tails hanging out of his mouth. We caught two fish on whole shad after that.

Anytime ya'll are ready to go again let me know, I'm in. I am definitely in for Striper trip Jeremy...didn't make it one time in last 2 years becasue everytime I could go it was to windy.

Ace...that was some crazy fishing wasn't it. Sorry again about getting that blood all over your scale. When that hawg started spinning he broke my boca grips and I had to go in bare handed. Who knew catfish would hit the helicopter lure in the DG area so good....LMAO. My buddy showed me that spot 5 yrs. ago, I hadn't fished it 1.5 - 2 years and I had never fished the lower end where we caught all those fish.

It was great to meet all of you and I look forward to fishing with you again soon.
Here is a link to a slideshow of our fish pics.

Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

Tight Lines

Shep
 
Nice work guys! Looks like you had a great day on the water. Very cool idea getting Triumph owners together for fishing outings like this. It would be a great way to get a regional Triumph Owners Group going. :)

Just my thinking too Randy. Was thinking of maybe expanding the Tidewater TBOC into the Old Dominion TBOC to include every owner from Tidewater, Richmond Metro, and the Eastern Shore. It would make sense since we all fish within a couple of hours of each other and with the increased participation maybe we could organize some nice local get togethers with the help of Seaport Marine down here and Adams & Durvin in up there. I would really like to get a group together for a small saltwater session this summer, and maybe have the folks out at Seaport show up with a 235 and 1700 skiff for the folks to poke around in. (BTW, this was not intended to hijack this thread.) Shoot me pm's if any of you guys are interested. I'll post more in the appropriate forum in the coming weeks. Ty, Ace, Billy, Shep, Lindsay et al... It was great to finaly meet you guys. I'm almost glad I didn't bring my boat though, would've been intimidated by all the 190's :-D.
 
nice to meet ya

Frank,
Dont be silly-I was looking forward to check out the 170 close and personal. If it is a Triumph it has to be a good one. If I fished by myself I would want a 17.
I apologize for bolting before dinner.
I will have to come as passenger if we go salt!
 
Wow....what a great day! I think Jeff and I were the only ones who didn't get hooked up, but we had a blast watching Shep (the catfish slayer) handle all those hogs. Ace/Shep...I think it was the presentation that was making them a little spooky. I had an arms length of 60lb mono for leader, a couple of red beads, and a 8/0 circle. That, and we had some smaller bait out in the open water vise the channel. If you guys don't mind I would love to get how your rigs were set up. My Pops is coming out from Idaho in early Feb and I plan on taking him up there to get the ones that got away. Also plan on throwing a cast net early for some larger bait.
Ace,
Really appreciate you showing the rookies around all day. You didn't have to do that, but Jeff and I had a real good time on the water. Thanks!
 
Ty,

It was no problem at all. Hopefully next time we'll both get on some better fishing. Let me know when you come plan on going again. I can siak the gill net longer and get enough cutters for both boats.
As for my set up, I put a sinker slide onto my line (plastic slide with a clip to hold the sinker on).
I then tie a large swivel on the end of the line. (this keeps the sinker slide from sliding all the way down to the hook.
I then tie on a 12-18" flourocarbon leader line to the other end of the swivel (80# test).
I use 10/0 circle hooks and 10 oz disk sinkers. For these cats you want as much hook exposed as possible.
I'll post up a pic shortly
 
Rigging....

Ty,
My rigs look identical to Ace's but I use 8/0 hooks and regular 100lb mono for my leader. Let me know when you are going to be heading back this way and hopefully we can hook up again. If you have any more questions about anything feel free to ask. I put 2 videos on youtube from last year. search "funny catfish video on James river" and "Bird dog on the James". The first is a funny naration by my dad on a trip with him last year. Fish was 28lkbs. The second is from last year as well, a 46lb. fish by my buddy caught just below the 295 bridge.

Tight Lines

Shep
 
Shep,

Same here. I run an 8/0 hook with 60# test leader. The only thing I can think of is my little red bead by the hook that is scaring them off. I plan on taking my Dad and Brother up on Saturday the 7th. You are more than welcome to bring your good luck. We don't have cast net yet, but plan on probably getting one for some bait. It's a treat just getting the three of us together so no fish is still a good trip, but this time I will tell my wife not to pack the bananas, just in case that was the problem. If I figure out how to post a picture I will put one on here, but it is also under my profile under my James River Pics.
 
bead

Ty
I dont think that river water is clear enough for that bead to make a difference. In fact i put a 2" bobber 6" from my hook to float the bait off the bottom. I dont have pictures but let me know if you need it.
 
Weird. Well, I don't know what it was, but we are headed up there on the 7th of February and anybody and everybody are welcome to join. BigBird, I have seen the rig you are talking of, and I would think if a bead would scare a fish off then that one would too. Maybe the stars weren't aligned or something that day for our boat.
 
Being in the right area at the right time has more to do with it than anything ;)..... The only thing that I will do different is use a larger 10/0 instead of a 8/0. I was using 20 pound main line with 30lb P-Line Flurocarbon Leader. Heck, we had one take down a dead eel on a float rig.....Just didnt get the hook all the way in its mouth. I will also start using a treble hook at the base of the Big Threadfins as a keeper/snell hook. I think that would insure a better chance of hooking up. 7th huh???? May look into it also. If we cannot make it good luck, and take pics..... That paperclip icon at the top of the Message box will allow you to upload pictures to the message :)....
 
I'll get some 10/0 this weekend, plus it looks like everyone uses the weight sliders on their line. I'm going to try everything to put my Dad & Bro on fish. BigBird, if you have some pics of your rig that would be helpful too. I've been looking at the GPS and think I've found some pretty good holes up their.
 
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