Just so you know...I live vicariously through you all when you go fishing and post your stories and pictures, so thank you for doing so.
After a long stretch, I was finally able to hit the lake today. I couldn't find the crappie, and got the same feedback from everyone I asked. But around 3-4 pm, I passed a deep pocket of water...depth finder went from 25 ft to 4 ft because of all the shad so basically 20 feet of shad . Decided to try it, and first fish I caught broke my line and I thought would break my jig rod. 3-4 times as I was reeling up, I snagged a shad in the side because they were so thick.
Pulled out the bass rod with 20 lb line and threw another shiner down. Bam...fat catfish. Next one was a gou, then several catfish and a bigger gou. Finally had one that I was worried would break my heavy line, but I managed to get him up. Big cat that I had somehow snagged in the side so he was swimming away from me as I reeled. It was a heck of a fight. I gave the two gou to a family on the bank, and brought home 6 channel cats. Also, all of them looked huge from stuffing on shad. The big one had 66 crammed in it's belly, from 1 - 3 inches long. Cats aren't my favorite (like crappie), but the fresh feesh was deleeesh! Anyway, here's the trip proof. Thinking of trying again tomorrow, but I'm so sore right now that I don't know if I could. lol
That butcher knife on the table is 12.5 inches long for perspective. The 5 look small, but only because the hog was so big.