Chasing Pussy, ....

…something I attempted frequently as a young man but I’d never fished for, or indeed caught a Catfish.  Why?  Well I could claim lack of opportunity but in truth there are a couple of waters that are fairly local and hold Cats.  Both are commercial Carp fisheries and therefore often crowded which is one of the things that has put me off.  Both of these waters have a low head of cats too so in reality, catching one from these would require a sizable investment of both time and money.  So do I want to spend a lot of time shoulder to shoulder with carp anglers and spend a fair bit of cash along the way?  No!!

My mind started to tick over recently when a customer brought in a leaflet for a commercial fishery in Norfolk which had a fair head of Cats and reasonable prices.  He confirmed my fears that the place got packed at weekends though.  However I had a little mid-week time coming so after consulting the good lady, I made a couple of phone calls, done a little research and began to make plans for my first attempt at Cat-fishing.

We rolled through the gates at about 4pm on a Sunday afternoon and had a little look around.  Toilet block, gravel roads and cut grass, not my sort of thing and I didn’t really feel at home but I could put up with this if it meant putting a Cat on the bank.  We found ourselves at the pool containing the Wels which looked much nicer than some of the others on the fishery which were little more than holes in the ground.  The Cat pool is about an acre in size, fringed with reeds and had some lovely Weeping willow trees which added character.  There were Carp showing all over, rolling and swirling but the water was like green pea soup and it was impossible to gauge the size of any fish.  The pool looked okay but there were about seven other anglers squeezed in, however most of them showed signs of packing up.  Shelley and I chose to fish at the western end of the lake beside a weeping willow.  The tree was an obvious feature but we were also as far from other anglers as we could get.  Fish of some description were fizzing out in front of me and Carp nosed around the margins.  The banks didn’t look too trodden so I hoped no one had fished this area over the weekend.  Most of the anglers that were about didn’t look particularly clued up, not that I am either when it comes to Carp or Catfish but I know not to charge down the bank and strike wildly at liners.

 So how should I fish?  I decided to hedge my bets on one rod fishing fishmeal boilies ‘snowman’ style with a PVA bag full of pellets and a handful of loose boilies.  This was fished on a 2.5tc Tricast rod and swung beneath the willow to my right.  This I hoped might catch me a carp but still give me a chance of a Cat.  On my second rod I fished a hair rig baited with two 22mm halibut pellets, tipped with a fake boilie.  Once again I attached a PVA bag full of various sized pellets and dropped this about five metres in front of the willow.  I didn’t put out too much loose feed at this stage as I wanted to wait and watch.  Shelley fished with her usual whip and maggot set up but bites were slow to come, I was hoping she’d be able to supply me with a few silver fish that I could use as bait.

It took me ages to get the bivvy set up and sorted as I was watching the water, looking for clues of what to do and how to fish.  Shelley showed no signs of catching any silver fish which cut out the livebait option.  The bailiff wandered round for a chat and recommended luncheon meat as a top bait for the Cats, sods law meant it was one bait I didn’t have with me but he kindly gave me a tin to try.  The sun was sinking slowly and most of the other anglers had departed, the rest were packing up so it looked like we’d have the pool to ourselves for the night, lovely!  I just had to decide how to fish.

I decided to stick with the boilie rod which I dropped into a reedy margin spot where carp had showed.  I walked round and baited up by hand with about fifty free offerings, that was one rod sorted.  With Shelley catching nothing on the whip we replaced this with another out and out ‘Cat rod’.  Incidentally the rods I used for the Cats were my most powerful Pike rods, both ten footers usually used from the boat; one of Dave Lumb’s Loch Tamer and a Fox Predator elite.  On both I had 50lbs braid and helicopter type rigs, hooklengths were made from either Fox Armadillo or Coretex.  Hooks were Kuro 2b barbless, for once I was complying with fishery rules.  Anyway, I fished two large Halibut pellets with a big PVA bag of pellets about fifteen metres out to an area where fish had been fizzing all evening.  Having read that Catfish are eating machines I baited this spot up with a couple of kilos of mixed pellets and a few boilies.  If I was lucky enough to catch anything I’d top up the bait.  The other rod was baited with a large chunk of luncheon meat and swung beneath the willow.  I put a couple of handfuls of pellets on top thinking it might help fish to find my bait in the soup like water.

Throughout the evening the indicators sounded as my lines tightened and fell slack.  I put this down to either liners or smallish carp trying to eat my too big baits.  I felt sure that should a Catfish take my bait, there’d be no messing about.  By this time we had the pool to ourselves but kept getting visited by strange locals, one carrying a large rifle along with a very skinny and very loud cat of the four legged, furry variety.  As the sky darkened our visitors departed and there was loads of fishy activity from leaping or rolling Carp.  There were also more sinister slurps and slaps that may have been Catfish feeding in the upper layers.  I can’t be sure but I suspect that’s what they were and I wished I had a livebait or even a bunch of lobworms out there.  It was a lovely starry night and we sat drinking tea, listening to the Olympic closing ceremony on the radio whilst chatting and putting the world to rights.  By midnight the closing ceremony had finished and the temperature had dropped considerably so we retired to the bivvy.  I was a little disappointed that the evening hadn’t brought me a Catfish and my confidence was low, what would the night bring?

The sleeping bag was warm and I began to slip away into sleep then all of a sudden an alarm was sounding a constant single tone “Showtime!” and I found myself scrambling out of the bivvy with shoes on the wrong feet.  The rod baited with halibut pellets had been picked up and I wound down into a fish that pulled back with power, it was apparent pretty quickly that I had hooked a Catfish!  There has been lots written about the fighting power of these fish and it hasn’t been exaggerated much.  To me the fight was like an Irish Pike of the same size but with more stamina.  When the fish went on a run it couldn’t be stopped and started off with a surge that juddered the rod tip in a manner that seemed strange to me.  I guess it was due to the long muscular fish tensing itself then uncoiling?  It was bloody good fun battling this creature in the dark and after a while I felt I was winning.  The loch tamer was doing its job, the runs became shorter and a long pale shape materialised over the net, I had my first ever Catfish!

The fish was as ugly as I knew it would be and actually very slimy but I was surprised by how well it behaved on the bank.  I’d read about the pads in the fish’s mouth but they were more ‘toothy’ than I expected, the gill rakers looked scary!  My hook was just in the corner of the mouth and I also removed another from the other side, along with a length of leadcore and several yards of line.  I weighed my Wels, no monster but a very pleasing weight for me, then Shelley reeled off a few photos.  One last look at this strange prehistoric creature then I returned it back to whence it came.  I then sorted out the mess, got the bait back out there and topped up the groundbait.  I’d got a Cat!  Result! 

Sleep didn’t come easily after that, although I was very tired my brain wouldn’t switch off.  I kept reliving the battle in my mind and hoped I’d get another chance.  Next thing I remember there was this sound and Shelley was murmuring, “was that your bite alarm?”  Then I heard that sound again and crawled out of my kip bag again to find a bait running buzzing away.  It was an un-missable take but somehow I managed to wind down into nothingness.  Had the fish dropped the bait?  Had I pulled the bait out of its mouth?  Who knows?  By now it was about 0500 and growing light so I recast the two Cat rods and topped the freebies up on both before returning to the comfort of the bivvy once again.

I managed a bit more sleep but all too soon it was 0800 and fully daylight; that would almost certainly be that fishing wise.  I began to think about getting out of the comfortable kip bag when another alarm sounded, this time it was the rod baited with luncheon meat.  By the time I reached the rod the alarm had stopped and the water boiled as a large fish made it’s get away.  I suspect a Cat may have somehow shed my hook and I’d missed another chance. 

After that I gradually began to tidy up our kit.  I cooked sausages for breakfast while Shelley had another try at catching something on the whip.  Eventually her persistence was rewarded and she managed to catch a couple of tiny Roach, maintaining her record of never having blanked but she is a fair weather angler!  I was very pleased that I’d managed a Catfish but I knew I could have had a couple more.  I’d learnt loads and now have more ideas of how I’d go about it in the future.  I enjoyed the whole Catfishing experience and I’m positive I’ll find the right time and the right place to have another go.  I now have a 100% record when it comes to chasing pussy but I wasn’t anywhere near that successful as a young man…