Look what we caught at Barren River, fishing for Crappie!

[TiminBowlingGreen]

Last week, my buddy and I were fishing Walnut Creek (12 foot of water, shiners) when we hooked this big cat. It took 55 minutes to show itself (6 lb. test). I reeled up our lines and followed the fish all around Walnut Creek. It was crazy. Another boat trolled with us out of curiosity to see what it was. I wish I could have got some of our boat in the picture to help validate how big fish was. It had to be 4 foot long. We are guessing around 70 lbs; maybe even bigger than that. The head of the fish was as big as my crappie net. We took this picture before we tried to land it by hand. Of course, when we grabbed it the fish broke the line. It was prehistoric looking. Maybe some of you have caught/seen a cat this big, but this was all new to me. It was fun though.

[badbrad]

Tim that's cool! I caught a 30lb flat head at barren once while green carp fishing. It was huge, but that one looks twice as big. Did you catch any crappie in walnut?

[kycreek]

Lots of fun. You never know for sure what is taking your bait.

[TiminBowlingGreen]

We caught maybe ten nice ones (20 or so total keepers). I think this Spring, Barren produced some of the nicest Crappie they have had in a while; atleast what I have seen. The catfish was fun and a great story, but I would rather have a bucket full of slab crappie.

[beespringer]

It looks like a bluecat to me..its hard to judge without anything to reference by..The one in my avator weighed 40lb it was caught and released back into the tennesse river last december.

[Dutch552]

Nice fish! That's a big old barren river flathead. My fishing partner caught a 20lber on a bass jig two weeks ago close to the Narrows. They aren't in the lake in huge numbers but the size in the lake is amazing. There is a really good population of nice 5lb-plus channel cats in the lake if you can keep the hybrids off your lines.