Chris Battles holds up a 32-pound yellow cat caught on the south end of Lake Waco while fishing with his grandfather, Chris Macias, who has been his fishing buddy since Battle could hold a fishing pole.
It takes a lot of knowledge and skill to be good at something, and that’s usually the reason why some folks struggle to catch a single fish while others make catching a limit seem easy. Learn the right ways to do something, then practice over and over until it becomes second nature.
Fishing itself doesn’t demand much in the way of skill. Anybody can stand there with pole in hand — all it takes is a pole and a hand. Consistently catching fish, on the other hand, involves knowing things like bait and tackle selection, fish behavior and preferences, and requires knowledge of knot tying, bait casting, fish cleaning and other skills that are based on manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination, which are refined with repetition.
I rarely get a big fish photo from anybody who’s a novice — unless they’re fishing with a seasoned angler or fishing guide. Lake record-holders don’t get lucky on their first trip to the shoreline any more than an average person could make a 3-point buzzer-beater shot. It takes practice.
So I wasn’t surprised to get a picture last week from Chris Battles, an angler I’ve known since he was a little kid. Battles, who’s navigating his way through the pandemic to earn his high school diploma, took a break on Friday afternoon to do some fishing at Lake Waco with his grandfather, Chris Macias, who has been his fishing buddy since Battles could hold a fishing pole.
Chris Macias holds a 28-pound blue cat he caught while fishing at Lake Waco. Lake Waco has a slot restriction on blue catfish: Fish measuring between 30 and 45 inches must be returned to the water, and only one blue cat measuring in excess of 45 inches can be kept per day.
They each hauled in some quality catfish while working the shoreline on the south end of the lake. Battles had cast a little piece of chicken liver on a small hook out and, shortly after, noticed a tap. The rod tip indicated something out there just tapping at the bait, and after a couple of minutes, he got impatient and set the hook.
Sometimes when the rod tip taps, it’s because the fish nosing at the bait is too small to take it and swim off. Other times, there’s a monster-sized fish that can’t make up its mind. Sometimes, the thing has already taken the bait and is just sitting there waiting for something else to happen.
Battles setting the hook was that other thing that happened, and the fight was on, with line being stripped off the reel by the fish, then reclaimed by Battles. About ten minutes after the first bump, Battles and the fish were exchanging hellos.
The big flathead catfish weighed 32 pounds and measured 43 inches in length. Battles was a little surprised to feel the weight of the fish when he set the hook because, he said, he typically only catches two to three pounders on that particular setup.
In the meantime, Macias found a reward on the other end of his 9-foot rod baited with cut shad in the form of a 28-pound, 36-inch long blue cat. Both fish got the CPR treatment — catch/photograph/release — so they can make more catfish and give somebody else a thrill someday.
Cormorants unwelcome
In last week’s column, I wrote about a particular bird called the cormorant. In some parts of the world, these birds are highly-prized. Texas is not that part of the world.
Cormorants are migratory birds that are looked upon as a nuisance by many fishermen and ranchers because of their negative effect on fisheries and balanced ecosystems. Back in the 1990s, colonies of cormorants could be found at lakes and ponds throughout Central Texas, and having a bunch of them arrive at your fishing hole meant you should probably start looking for another place to fish.
These birds are voracious feeders that can dive to 25 feet deep. They’re prolific underwater hunters, possessing both the agility and the aggressiveness to kill and injure numerous fish on each dive. They’ll even attack prey that is much too large for them to eat, which adds to their bad reputation among anglers.
I’ve caught dozens of fish that were survivors of cormorant attacks, some that had been freshly hit and were still bleeding. How a bass could eat at a time like that is beyond me, but I’m not a fish.
It’s estimated that a cormorant can eat about a pound of fish per day, and when you find one, there are usually more in the vicinity. They also annoy anglers by “fishing” in the same areas that people do, so if you spot a cormorant, you can bet that the lily pads you’re planning to cast into have already been scoured.
Cormorants were first documented in Texas in 1939. They’re also a federally protected species, which was a cause of frustration when the birds seemingly appeared out of nowhere like locust swarms.
How did the numbers suddenly increase, and what was done to get the population balanced again? Check in with next Sunday’s Tribune-Herald outdoors column for these and more answers.
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November 15, 2020 at 05:34AM
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Outdoors: Fishing is easy, catching fish takes skill - Waco Tribune-Herald
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