Myself, Dad (Jerry Cline) and brother (Josh Cline) had the pleasure to fish Wheeler Lake in Alabama with Guide, Mike Mitchell this past Friday, February 5th. This day was one that we will never forget!!!

We anchored on our second spot around 9:00 AM and the fun began. The first rod dropped and Dad uses a TWC rod to land a 30 lb Blue. The second TWC rod dropped and I catch a 40 lb Blue. No bites for 15 minutes and we go to our next spot. First rod drops and Josh uses a TWC rod to catch his PB a 66 lb Blue. Second TWC rod drops and Dad fights and land his PB 72 lb Blue. No bites for a few minutes and we move again.

My rod goes down and I grab the rod out of the Monster Rod Holder and immediately know that this is a monster. It felt like I had just hooked into a car. I have never felt something so big and so strong in all my life of fishing! I kept telling Mike, my dad and Josh that this is a giant. After about a 10-15 minute fight Mike lands the fish in the net. Josh and Mike lift the giant Blue into the boat. After several minutes of extreme excitement it is time to weigh the fish. Mike pulls out his 100 pound scale and the scale reads FULL!!! I can't believe that I have just caught a 100 pound fish. Mike then brings out his 110 pound scale and the Blue weighs in at 102.52 lbs!!! The Blue was 54 inches long and the girth measured 40 inches. We take several pictures and release the big Blue back into Wheeler. The total for the day was 8 Blues for 420 pounds!!!

Guys I had a wonderful time getting to know yall better....that was definately a "trip of a lifetime" for the guide as well.....that fish has been swimming through my dreams for several years, now it will be replaced with a World Record Blue.

I would like to thank my sponsors for providing me with some great catfishing products
Team Catfish Tackle - anyone who doubted that a 8/0 double action circle hook could handle a 100+ lb blue in 8 ounce current, well we proved it....You can't go wrong with Team Catfish.
Monster Rod Holders - One thing Joe said is he was glad I was using Monster's because that rod would have been almost impossible to get out of any other holder.......truth be known a lot of the holders out there would have been ripped off the boat......never a doubt in my mind that the Monster Rod Holder will handle these big cats day in and day out.
Fat Cat Outdoors - I can't thank these guys enough for their support....MonsterCats is due to be out anyday and will be the best catfishing film ever.
Drop-N-Stay - Anchoring made easy....rough water and wind don't scare me anymore.

 

 

 

I had the pleasure of going out with our new sponsor, FAT CAT OUTDOORS, this weekend.  Cuz, Ryan and Russ came down from Missouri to shoot some fill in footage for the MONSTER CATS DVD, which will be coming out in early 2010.  We headed out with high hopes of getting a few more 60+ fish on film.  It turned out to be much more than any of us could have expected. 

 

 

 

 

Well, old college roomate and friend of mine Dennis made his way to Chattanooga.  The plan was to hang out for a few days and go fish with Mike one day.  We went Friday afternoon, late into the night.  Started out catching some skippies, which are still abundant at Guntersville Dam.  I had a great time with the popping cork rig, sometimes 3 on at a time.
 
Denny has never caught a catfish before, so I knew this would be interesting.  I made a deal with him, he would get to reel in the blues until he broke the 30 lb mark.  We anchored up at the first spot, and within about 10 minutes, he puts a 39 lber in the boat.  Not bad for a first catfish huh?  After that, I pulled in a 41 lber.  Not a bad start.  Some of these are on video too, so be looking for a link to the video in the coming weeks.  We went ahead and moved to our next spot, with no takers.  On to the next spot.  The clicker is singing, and Denny picks up the rod and has a beast on the other end.  After several minutes, the 48 inch blue hits the bottom of the boat, and it weighed 65 lbs.  So his first goes 39, then 65 lbs, ridiculous.  Denny doesn't even understand, some of us cat guys grew up on 5-10 lb channel cats, he won't ever want to catfish in ponds now!  A few minutes later, I hook up, and it's a 54 lber.  The bite seems to be on.
 
Well after that, we had fun, but the wind was ripping upriver and made the bite a bit tougher.  I don't even know how Mike managed to stay anchored. Denny pulled in a 25 and a 31, and I brought in a 20 and 24.  Pretty great when those are the little ones.  Our total went 8 fish around 300 lbs.

 

 

 

Well I talked to Jason Bridges today about 6:15 too get a skipjack report, he said they were catching them pretty fast....I loaded up the kids and we headed to the dam, we got there around 7:15 and talked to Jason just as they were reeling in a skipjack......he said they have about quit.....we tried for 30+ minutes with only a few stripe to show for it....I brought the cat rods, so I got up a few bluegill and headed down river, stopped by the ramp and talked Jason out of one Skippy.

We hit our first stop at approx. 8:00 fished 15 minutes with only one bite a small one at that, second stop approx. 8:30 we were only fishing three rods two with skipjack and one bluegill, 5 minutes went by and outside rod gets hit a little and then starts steadily clicking.....I fought it almost within net range and the middle rod went off, both of the skipjack baited poles....I let it load up in the holder and told Jackson (6 Years Old) to Crank it in.....I'm still trying to fight my fish, and he says it got off and takes the rod out of the holder, I said reel reel it's just swimming at us.....Meanwhile Josh (4 Years Old) nets my fish like a pro which turns out to be a 34 pound flathead...While Jared (3 years old) was just taking everything in and who knows what he might have been throwing overboard to see if it would sink or float.....Jackson has now caught up to his fish with the rod in his hand holding on for dear life, I said you better go in the water with the pole before you let go of my rod......I never helped him, it had crossed the other line and I had a heck of a time trying to get it in the net.

Anyway we got them both weighed and some fairly decent pics of my flathead and his new personal best bluecat at 51 pounds...we were back on the trailer at 9 P.M.

 

 

I was finally able to get back up to the Chattanooga area and try for some big cat's.......we started out on Chick and with the high bluebird sky's the fishing was tough.....we managed to drift around and locate some quality fish and we landed a 39,34,32,14, and 8 lber.....we decided to take out around 11:30 and see what Nickajack had to offer, we put in and the river was just barely trickling and boy was it hot.........we only managed one more fish......but it was a "Biggen" 60 pounder....we quit early due to the heat.....everyone was happy expecially the guide.

Most cat's were caught 30-45ft deep....all the big ones were caught on half-a-skipjack baits.

 

 

Report Written by Sam Simons

Every year I book a trip with Mike in the spring to celebrate the end of school and my girlfriend pays for it as an early birthday present. It doesn't get any better than that.

We started out catching skipjack and bluegill around 12:30. About 1:00 we went fishing. A few minutes later, I pick up a rod with a big live bluegill and feel some heavy weight. Then the fish goes nuts. The fight lasted several minutes and I could have used one of those ocean fighting rigs. I was hoping it was my first big flathead, since it was a bluegill. Turns out, it was a 58 lb flathead. Then Mike hooked a big one and handed the rod over to me. It got out near the fast current, and I finally broke off. We caught one more channel about 8 lbs, and that was it.

So we headed downriver and made our first anchor. No fish, so we moved spots and quickly put 52 and 45 lb blues in the boat. Both super fights in the current. We made our 3rd anchor and had a few takedowns and some 7-8 lb blues. We decided to make one last anchor and threw out some live bluegill toward some structure near the bank. We also had cut skipjack rigged. In 30 ft of water on cut skipjack, I caught a 26 lb flathead. Now that would have freaked me out, but the 58 would have eaten the 26, lol. It was crazy fun and a great way to kick off my summer break.

Thanks Mike, and I'm glad I rigged that bluegill. After I put it on the hook through the lips (Craig) Mike said, that looks like a 40 lb flathead. Definitely the meanest and baddest catfish fight I have ever had.

Driving to Canada in the morning, rough stuff.

 

 

I had another great trip yesterday with the water flowing like this the big cats are definately on the prowl and feeding up for the spawn....makes me wish I could fish everyday that's for sure.....we started the day out about 9:30 A.M. in a light rain.........the bite was on big time and the first rod I baited went down before I got the second one baited, it turned out to be a 25 lber.....we caught about 4 more including a nice 54 lber wich was one pound short of Gary's PB blue he caught with me last year......when the sun popped up it seems things just shut down for awhile but we still managed to catch 5 more cats between 5-18 lbs on various stops along the way.....the clouds rolled back in around 4 oclock and the bite turned on again we got 3 more teenie boppers and then the biggun hit all 88 lbs of pure muscle....I can say that my new Catfishsafari rod got broke in right and it done an outstanding job as well....I have used most brands of rods on the market and these are the best by far that have been in my boat....Of course the fish was CPR'd (Catch, Photograph, and Released) so he can grow big.....this fish was very healthy and definately has the potential to grow to be 100+

Most of the fish were caught in 10-20ft of water....all of them on cut skipjack.....we were snapping 4-6 oz bank sinkers on a #6 sinker slide, using a sinker bumper on the mainline (30-40 mono)...I pre-tie all my rigs with 80 lb mono and 8/0 and/or 5/0 double action circle hooks....depending on bait size I use single and double hook rigs....Team Catfish tackle has yet to fail me, so that's what I fish with.

 

5/1/09 & 5/2/09 Wheeler Lake "Wisconsin Clan Vs. Trophy Bluecats"

 

I had this trip scheduled for several months now and these gentlemen flew down from Wisconsin (No Pressure).....I was worried because the current has been so slow and I haven't been able to get out much at all lately....oh and the weather it looked very grim indeed....I had a group of five so we split it up into two groups and fished a morning shift (John and Pete) and afternoon shift (Moose, Mike, and Tim).

Friday morning as we hit the ramp it was coming a monsoon, so we opted to sit it out for awhile.....It let up after about an hour so we got rain geared up and we made our first anchor which quickly yielded a 17 pounder.....the rain set in hard and some distant lightning so we called off first shift early......we took a break and hit the water about 2 P.M. the weather was finally cooperating and Mike struck first with a 40 lb Blue, then it was his Dad's turn Moose he landed the big fish of the day at 57 lbs.....It took awhile but we got Tim one as well at 32 lbs the weather was acting up again (tornado warnings) so we called it quits for the day.

Saturday was a much nicer day with only a few soakings.....John and Pete on first shift regained the lead with 5 cats at 60,45,35,16, and 8 lbs.....The rain had risen the water about a foot and the current was just right about 40k....John got the big 60 lber around 11:15 and we called it quits, so I had high hopes for round two and boy was we in for a treat........I found something on the sidescan marked it and within 5 minutes we had a 59 and 53 double in the boat, we caught two more there at 25 and 29 lbs.....we ran down river and caught a 5 lber but the rain chased us back up river where we got a 13 lber....Were down to the last stop now and the rod goes down big after a nice battle Tim had a big beatiful 84 lb Blue in the boat.

Total weight was 595 lbs for the two days......we would have had a nice sack on Saturday if we were able to fish in the bass pro tourney, probably would have gave jbridges a run for his money.....fish were all caught off anchor in 20-35ft of water on guess what?.....skipjack.......of course we were using Team Catfish 8/0 double action hooks, #6 Sinker Slides, and Sinker Bumpers......wish I could have broke in my new CatfishSafari fishing rods but the Fed-Ex man got lost and they didn't get here till Sat.

Edited by Southerncats 5/3/2009 11:30 PM

 

 

I got out Friday with Terry Miller from Illinois....Terry is an old pro and has been in the boat with some of the best catfishermen I know including James Patterson, Phil King, Jim Moyer, and Gary Haynes........He was after big cats and was hoping to break his personal best bluecat of 46 pounds.

I thought we was going to be in for a action packed day right off the bat when the first rod went down before I could get the second one baited...that fish turned out to be a 34 pounder, we quickly boated another 24 pounder then things got slow for awhile so we made a move to our second anchor of the day which yielded 3 cats at 76,40, and 75 lbs.....I told terry that it was extremely rare to catch two over 70 in a day and it looked like Terry had a new personal best at 76 pounds.......until we hit our last spot and caught a 51 incher which weighed in at 82 pounds....we caught one more which looked like a basketball that weighed 26 lbs and called it a day.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of you may know but my wife had our first baby girl (notice the outfit we have 3 boys) Wednesday so I was fortunate enough to sneak off and do a trip today that I had previously booked.

I got out with the Treadway's again today, we had a big time day and only missed getting that sought after triple digit by 2 pounds.......The current was really ripping today and some of the places I had been getting bit the fish had moved.....but when we found them today we found them...early on in the morning we doubled up with a 51 and 44 pounder within minutes we had a 23 Lber.....5 more minutes and a 54 pounder in the boat....later on in the day we hit another big time double 62 and 54 pounds....already a great day....Toni "Red" Treadway arrived late in the day and we were hoping to get her a 50+........but little did we know how big her first bite was, this was an epic battle of give and take for 10+ minutes, while she was fighting it another rod went off and that fish was around 30 lbs and it goes straight to tangle up in Red's line.....We got the 30 in front of the net and cut it off and scooped it and quickly unhooked and released it, another 5+ minutes and we have the big beatiful 98 pound blue in the boat....we weighed it several times trying to squeeze a few more pounds, measured it 54 inches x 38.5 inches, took a couple dozen pics on 3 different cameras, and released it back healthy as could be.