# A day in the life of a Pro cat fisherman..



## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Let me start by stating the term "Pro" is used lightly, some would argue it but the fact I have fished the largest National Cat tournament trail in the US ( Cabelas KingKat) for the last 3 years pretty much makes me that. So with that, yesterday I fished the Deleware River Tournament out of Chester PA, ( Philadelphia) the tournament was basically in the Delaware bay, surrounded by PA, Delaware and New Jersey, still tidal ( 6.8 ft 2 times a day but all in Fresh water) it is a world class Channel Cat fishery, mostly for numbers, loaded with 2-3 lbers but the key is to find bigger fish, last year the event was won with 31 lbs/5 fish. I had spent all week scouring google and Bing Maps and spent countless hours talking to other anglers, rereading older fishing reports, talking to fisheries biologist, calling bait shops all seeking information. I had a plan worked up, actually 3 different plans, but would have to actually get the boat on the water to scout before I could make up my mind. Thursday after work I managed to castnet enough shad and suckers for fresh bait , get home at 8 pm, and also was bringing frozen skipjack while searching for a contact to get some fresh Bunker/Menhadden ( Salt version of a shad sort of) other folks used a lot of shrimp, crap and chicken livers but we stuck with what we knew.
I got packed by 10 pm, hit the sack and left the house by 2:30 for the 8.5 hr drive. now tack on a flat tire on the boat, at least a 20 minute detour getting on the PA Turnpike, and 3 wrecks and then the standstill traffic on Friday at mid afternoon and I finally got he boat in the water just before 3, leaving me only 2.5 Hrs to scout before I had to be at the Captains meeting at Harrahs Casino
I put in at High tide and the wind was rolling at 15-20 straight up the bay with current coing out of the bay, not good, I quickly put my PFD and kill switch on and rode the 4-5 ftrs out in my 19ft deep V, I was going with the wind so while they seemed pretty bad they were nothing like when I cam e in, LOL anyways I quickly found some sheltered water in a side channel behind an island and made a quick pass there and along the main channel where it dropped from 15-20 ft down to about 43-52 FOW. I will tell you that its hard to mark humps when the boat is bouncing up and down in big waves, LOL so I kept rolling along eagle eyed to my navionics/HB Mega fishfinder and I checked out 2-3 feeder creeks and none had any scour holes and none had any wood??? so I guess Id have to fish ledges and humps as the bottom was as bare as a babys butt. I rolled across a mid river sandbar that looked good and I marked a lot of baitfish of some type so I marked that and then I headed up a large feeder river that is fishable for several miles and I figured if it was windy on Saturday it would be a good place to Drag baits, ( Troll)
so I marked a few good looking banks and headed back to the river mouth as I remembered a spot from the google maps I wanted to check, problem was the tide was dropping hard and now I motor over and realize I am now in like 8" of water, yikes, so I got stuck on a log and had to trolling motor my way out of there, it was scary as I thought I might have to exit the boat to get off that spot, lucking I was able to get free and TM out to the drop off, mental note, stay in channel. now I leave the river mouth and realize the 4 mile run back into the wind was not going to be pleasant, there were 4-5 ftrs and everytime the boat came down, ( every time) the boat took about 10 gallons of water over the front, it certainly was a long 1 hr and 20 minutes to get back to the ramp, ( white knuckled pucker factor of about 8) I get back, safely ( thank you god) and rush to get to the captains meeting with about 5 minutes to spare and find out my partner Ryan beat me from Nashville by about 5 minutes. meeting goes well ( 22 teams from 7 states) and we head for Hotel which was supposed to be 6-7 miles from Harrahs Casino in Delaware but somehow it was more like 25 miles and I was delivering to a another angler some bait and he was bringing me some Bunker, an hour later of us waiting, he gets there and we shoot the bull and so at 10 PM were looking for someplace to eat dinner, long nite and yes, were ready after discussing plans, decide on a plan to fish sheltered channel on bay early and when the wind picked up move into River,

Get to ramp about 5:30 start getting boat ready as we keep watching a torrential storm coming in fast, complete with tornado warnings, lots of RED in the radar, moving fast, Tourney starts at 6:30 and we can launch where ever you want so at 6:15, boat is ready but we decide to wait out heaviest part of staorm in car, best move of the day, LOL, it came down in buckets sideways for 40 minutes.. once over we hightail it to the bay and start dragging 4 rods off the back long with 2 short rods dropped over the sides, within minutes I have my first fish, a 15" White Catfish, ( new fish for the life list) we throw it back, were looking for channels and the rare flathead, fish were on fire, we probably landed 25-30 fish in the next 3 hrs and only looking for the best 5, at this time we have culled a bunch and have had many double and triples in the baot, really fun fishing, were using cut fresh bunker, frozen skippies and fresh shad, all are working equally well. 
Problem was we only had2 decent fish just under 5 lbs and rest were around 4 lbs, so we make a move to some humps and holes in 20 ft of water and get more of the same, time to move, so we make a run to the Schuykill River and start working a drift across the channel,nothing and nothing until we get to far side of channel and find a few stacked on outside bend ledge from 32-up to about 15 ft. I think we got another dozen fish there including a nice 6 lber and make another move to a nice current seam off a rock point with a lot of big rock on the bottom, we set up and troll right along rocks and slowly start picking up fish, the closer to the current point, the more fish, we finally get a 6.4 lber and we keep working on upgrading where ever we can as this game is always in ounces. loads of fish later and were hoping for a "kicker" fish to help but it never came, I think we didn't have a single upgrade in the last 90 minutes but still caught at least a dozen fish, all in that 2-3 lb range. we finally call it quits and drive like mad to ramp, thank goodness the rollers were only 2-3 ftrs which my boat handles pretty well.
we drive a few miles to weigh in at Harrahs, we are weighing in on the horse track so lots of folks watching in grandstands on this hot humid day, that was cool, we are near the end of the line and by that time we know its not good as the boat in front of us found a few flatheads, turns out we had 5 fish for 26.66 lbs and finished in 8th place, not bad but not good since the trip cost me a fortune in gas, Tolls, a trashed tire etc. and tourney only pays 3 places, dang it....worse part is I got beat by 12/100 of a lb by the guy I'm now tied for 2nd place in the Cabelas Angler of the Year points race, I really needed to get a place up on him after weigh in, we repack my and partners Ryans cars for the drive home, its almost 6 pm and we both drive halfway home and sleep in the cars for the night and wake up early to finish the drive, I get home around 11am and am bushed, spend another hour airing out drift socks and all containers that filled up during torrential storms and put everything away, whew, a long 48 hours.... Tomorrow, I start it all over again getting ready for this weekends local tourney at East Fork Lake.. and as tiring as it is, Id not have it any other way..LOL 

Sorry so long but a short synopsis of what we go through everyweek getting ready to fish...


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## TClark (Apr 20, 2007)

Salmonid said:


> white knuckled pucker factor of about 8


LOL!!! Yes we'll do about anything to keep the dream alive. Good luck out there....loved the post!!


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## 9Left (Jun 23, 2012)

nice goin Mark! Always great to read your stories of tournaments!


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## polebender (Oct 29, 2011)

Oh, the glorious life of a tournament angler! How everyone wishes they could have the "Life of Riley" and fish for a living!
Great report!


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## Pike (Apr 7, 2004)

Mark, Great story! Best of luck at East Fork this weekend.


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## Gottagofishn (Nov 18, 2009)

Great post for those that dream of living the tourney life. Most should probably keep their day jobs.....


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Gottago. Dont worry in the catfish world, everyone already has at least a day job and a part time to help pay for everything lol


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Gottago. Dont worry in the catfish world, everyone already has at least a day job and a part time to help pay for everything lol


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## chris1162 (Mar 12, 2008)

Thanks for always sharing your stories and wisdom!


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## tedtami (Apr 14, 2014)

Great story and insight to a fun but hetic life ! Good Luck in all your fishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## FINMAN (Apr 14, 2004)

Thanks for sharing Mark - thoroughly enjoyed the story!


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## catfish_hunter (May 31, 2005)

haha, great story Mark. It is very similar to my tournament experience at Sandusky bay the same day, except 7fters, and only a 3hr drive lol.


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## Stimp (Jul 7, 2017)

Could someone explain to me how to post a forum question? Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Stimp said:


> Could someone explain to me how to post a forum question? Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Stimp, if your replying to this post, just hit the reply like you did, if wanting to start a new thread, go to the correct forum ( By species or sectionof the state or if a general question, go to the "Lounge" once there in the right hand side you will see a "post" button but I think you have to have 10 replies before you can post though, not sure....youll have to look further for that answer.
Salmonid


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## Stimp (Jul 7, 2017)

Salmonid said:


> Stimp, if your replying to this post, just hit the reply like you did, if wanting to start a new thread, go to the correct forum ( By species or sectionof the state or if a general question, go to the "Lounge" once there in the right hand side you will see a "post" button but I think you have to have 10 replies before you can post though, not sure....youll have to look further for that answer.
> Salmonid


Hey samonid, thank you very much for the info. I will look into what you said and dig around a little more. I sent the website a question, but haven't heard back yet. I'm sure they are busy.


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## Stimp (Jul 7, 2017)

Stimp said:


> Hey samonid, thank you very much for the info. I will look into what you said and dig around a little more. I sent the website a question, but haven't heard back yet. I'm sure they are busy.


*salmonid*


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