We had booked a charter the last day of our trip, and were taught a very important lesson. Plan a backup day. The charter was booked for a night fishing trip on the Potomac River. During the day we visited Arlington National Cemetery and somehow got lost in the Pentagon parking lot. The weather was beautiful all day, but it had other idea when night came around.
Three storm fronts from different directions hit us at different times. Our charter guide was hoping to reschedule as the weather was awful ad even if we could get out the bite would be slow. Since we were leaving that day, rescheduling wasn't possible so we tried to wait it out. The rain finally let up, we got out on the water and boom, storm from another direction, so we headed back and checked the weather network. Sure enough three storm fronts. The last one didn't have any lightning so when the torrential rain from storm 2 ended we headed out.
We set the lines out in the middle of the Potomac and began waiting. After quite a while the first rod folded over. My dad got it and after a short fight, landed a 15lb Blue Catfish. After another long period of time the second rod folded over and my brother got this one. This fish was substantially bigger. My dad helped my brother with the rod as he was having a hard time controlling the fish. A back and forth struggle ensued and after quite some time, my brother landed a 35ish lb Catfish (turned out to be 30lb). We didn't get anything for the next hour and I was a little worried that there wouldn't be anymore interested.
My little brother took this time to start ruthlessly mocking me, my dad, and the charter guide. "What's the biggest fish you caught? Mine was 35lbs!" It was pretty funny at least he was clever with his bragging. I was really just glad that he was enjoying himself, since he doesn't normally like coming on fishing trips. I couldn't imagine how upset he would be if he was the one left out. So I figured the little amount of torment would be well worth having him join us on a few more trips. I also figured karma would kick in and I would get to catch something.
Karma eventually did kick in as a rod started dancing. I grabbed it almost the second in folded over and started reeling. I was not ready for the power of this fish. It took a lot of effort to lift the rod to reel in line, and I had noodle arms (I may or may not still have noodle arms, that is a subject of discussion for a later time). It was slow going at first as the fish would take long powerful runs every time I started to gain on it. Eventually it started swimming at the boat. I needed to reel in as fast as I possibly could to keep any tension on the line. It saw the boat and decided to head the other way, but by now it was too late. It was tired and I was able to steer it into the net.
Species #15 Blue Catfish (Ictalurus Furcatus): You can tell it apart from a channel catfish by its anal fin
straight is a blue, curved is a channel. You can also see the noodle arms
A big thanks goes out to our incredible guide for sticking it out for us. We will definitely be planning a rain date the next time we go on a charter.
