Had a friend over from work to catch whatever we could. Dug up 100 worms and we caught a nice string of shellcrackers ( red ears ) , bluegill , and catfish.

About 20 minutes after we started , I caught a nice bait- sized copperhead bluegill and threw him out on my live bait rod.

I had been watching the cork and had taken my attention off it for less than a minute. The cork had silently gone under and had been taken 200 feet or so out in the lake in that short time .When I tightened up and set the hook , the fish came all the way out of the water.

 

The fish ended up weighing 6 lb 11 oz , and was 24 inch.

That was the only run we got all afternoon on the bait rod.

 

Nice!

Is that a white cat or a channel.  I've got a friend near the space center who has two lakes loaded with white cats.  Reminds me of our bullheads up here, only gray.

It's a brown bullhead. That one had more white in it than normal.

Nice hawg Mike. Good to hear someone's catching the big fish while the rest of us dream about spring. 

That's always how it goes, take your eye off the float and it will go under. Nice catch!

That's a nice bass!

Great afternoon of fishing Mike, must have been a fun few minutes getting all that line back! And I’m a guessing the big girl didn’t make it on that stringer...

1 hour ago, J._Bricker said:

Great afternoon of fishing Mike, must have been a fun few minutes getting all that line back! And I’m a guessing the big girl didn’t make it on that stringer...

Yeah , we had planned to go out in the boat but kept catching fish so we stayed put. And yes , big mama is back in the lake . I was out back a little while ago and I think she's still around . Saw another big blow-up on a bream right where she was the other day. Also seeing bedding activity, 2 little bucks were hanging around close in about 10 feet apart. Seeing some lake bottom excavations too !