The Darkness and The Channel Catfish at Nockamixon.


 

          Bucks County Angler

 

                   The Darkness and The Channel Catfish at Nockamixon.

July 28th, 2004

        Ever have one of those fishing trips where you're almost certain you're not going to catch anything and then you're proven wrong in one amazing instance? Well after about 3 1/2 hours at Lake Nockamixon loaded for bear as it were, in terms of fishing equipment and catching exactly nothing, I was beginning to feel like I had wasted my time and money (cost of gas of driving an hour away and buying three different types of bait. Which reminds me, one of these blogs is just gonna be me bitching about the cost of fishing supplies these days) … but nonetheless, my larger rig setup was baited with a dace minnow and was cast out probably about 75 feet with an alert bell attached to it. As it sat there in its fishing cradle stand which I had made from an old photography tripod for hours on end without so much as a nibble, I began to slowly lose hope that I was going to hook anything.  I literally had four lines in the water without a single strike in 5 1/2 hours. To be honest, it was getting a little depressing. After all, I had bought a brand-new reel for heavy duty fishing. It even had the greatest name I'd ever heard of for a fishing reel, ‘The Darkness’. Really, think about it for a minute. You catch a really great fish and when people ask you what your gear was, you get to say ‘I used The Darkness’... That's worth the price of the reel right there. But as I had mentioned, I hadn't caught anything all day, let alone something worthy of ‘The Darkness’. I was getting ready to call it a day or maybe just move to a different location when suddenly, the bell went absolutely nuts. It literally knocked over my fishing stand and by the time I got my hands around the pole and set the hook, I realized I had something very big. At first, based on the way it was floating, I assumed it was a medium sized muskie, which I was more than OK with, but when the body of the fish broke the water. I realized this was a very large catfish. A 2 1/2 ft channel catfish, to be precise. After landing it, I was then. Greeted by onlookers who have been setting up their inflatable kayaks to go enjoy the lake, who offered to take some photos of me with it, which I deeply appreciated. But still I feel the photo I took of myself with it was by far the best one. That catfish turned out to be the only fish I ended up catching that day, but more than made-up for the time I spent not getting so much as a nibble. Every fisherman knows that patience is a virtue, but this happened to be one of the times when it was really proven perfectly correct. Not to mention the fact that it made for a fantastic first catch for The Darkness.


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