Catching Catfish

You ever catch a catfish? You ever catch a ten pound channel cat while in an inner tube with a string with a hook on the end? You ever catch a ten pound channel cat while in an inner tube with a string with a hook on it and try to paddle back to your boat one handed while the catfish is thrashing around and ends up in your lap in the inner tube and the only thing you can do is grab it hard with your thumb in its mouth to watch it grind its sharp little teeth into your thumb while the blood flows freely and you are trying to paddle back to your boat one handed. No, you never did that. Then you are not the thing that legends are made of. I, on the other hand was a short time legend in Moweaqua Illinois. Riding with my father in law we stopped at a fella's house and I was introduced and the man looked at me for a long moment then said, "Yer the fella what caught the catfish in the inner tube!" Guilty as charged. I showed him the scar on my thumb as proof.

The first year Carol and I were married we had a little Yukon Delta houseboat slipped at Finley Marina on Lake Shelbyville. We would spend weekends on it. On this particular weekend we had my two oldest kids, Samantha and Matt with us. We had driven the boat around all day then selected a shoreline to moor off on for the night. Just before dark I attached a trot line to the boat and paddling to the shore with the other end I tied it off and baited each of the dozen or so hooks on the way back.

Then the next morning, bright and early, I lowered myself into the cool water and paddled to where I had tied off the line onto a tree. Carol and kids gathered on the back deck to watch. I was hoping for breakfast. I thought nothing could be more fun for the kids than to learn about cooking fresh caught fish right from lake to pan. I gently tugged on the line and it seemed to be snagged on something and I thought just my luck. I untied the line and began to pull myself along checking each empty hook as they came up. Toward the middle it was snagged. I pulled on it. Still snagged. I gave it as hard a yank as I could because the yanking did little more than move the inner tube around on the water. This time the snag moved. Then the snag began to swim away. I've got something I yelled. Hand over hand I was bringing the snag closer and closer. It was a good thing I still had the other end tied to the boat or I would be dragged across the lake. Finally the snag hit the surface. Yep, ten pound catfish. That's when the thrashing, the yelling and the shouted encouragement from the boat began.

So there I was, trying to one arm paddle to the boat when the catfish - have I mentioned that catfish have spikes that stick out both sides of the heads - punctured the inner tube. The catfish smiled. I was going down to his neck of the woods.

I yelled, pull me in, pull me in! Carol started pulling, the kids watching excitedly. In the nick of time I got close enough to the boat to heave the catfish onto the back deck where it thrashed wildly. Samantha went up the latter, Carol and Matt jumped into the water. The fish owned the boat.

Have you ever caught a catfish while in an inner tube with only a piece of string and a hook?