This is a true story. When I was stationed at Ft Hood weused to go out and fish the tanks on post. My and a buddy had been at it all day on one tank with nothing to show for it. This "good ol boy" comes walking down the bank past us a ways, back in this really thick flooded timber. He had nothing but one rod with what appeared to me to be a Rapala Skitter Pop. He threw it out there a few times then we here the comotion. Fish on. He get it close to the bank and reaches down with one hand to land his catch, and the lure comes flying back at him. Without missing a beat he goes in head first!!! We couldn't believe this. After a few seconds he comes up and out of the water with a 12lb catfish!!!! Said he caught an 8lber the day before in the same spot on the same topwater bait. After a minute talking to us he left with his supper. That was the craziest thing I had ever seen while fishing.

Cliff

That's an amazing story with great agility and awareness.  Reminds me of when Mike Iaconelli jumped out of his boat to catch his line and hand line his fish in.

We troll Bandits for crappie a lot in the summer and catch cats sometimes.  I think Van Dam caught a big one on a Redeye during the classic.  Of anything I've used while bass fishing, Gulp has by far caught the most cats!

I caught a 40 pound flat head on a Rapala dt last spring and it is not uncommon to catch chanel cats from 5 to 10 pounds in this section of the Ohio river on cranks. They can turn a slow day into a bunch of fun.

In the last week I have caught:

6lb blue cat

2.3lb crappie

2lb cat

10lb drum

I caught a channel cat once in about 20 feet of water on a floating rapala...

Fishing a lease pond several years ago just after dark on a black jitterbug, no moon, so I couldn't see much. Sounded like a 5 gallon bucket falling in the water. It was about a 10-11 pound flathead. That was fun.

I've also caught a lot of catfish trolling hot-n-tots.