Hal, would you say that 3 pounds of meat from a 10 pounder would be about right?

Not sure? But I guess with a catfish you'd skin it before filleting the thing? We'd always take pliers and pull off the skin. Same with an eel.

Here's a link to WVMetro news. I heard about it Tuesday. A DNR officer called me here at work and asked if I had digital scales, and I told him that my WV certified scales only went to 30 pounds. South Mill Creek dam is about 45 minutes from here. But that is one big fish!

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/06/22/virgi...O_4kpZ4E-rH-6r0

Well, I finally had a chance to go swimming last Friday morning. We had a heavy rain storm Wednesday night, it only lasted and hour or so, but anywhere from 0.9 to 1.2 inches of rain.

I was swimming at the town park, same place those guys caught the 15 catfish the other night. The river was up 2 feet or so? Visibility was over 6 feet in the new water comming into the hole, different parts of the hole visibility dropped down to about 3 feet.

That hole has changed since last summer. If you'd look at it from above, just say it's a sheet of paper. Water comes in at the top left corner and goes out the bottom right corner. The top right and bottom left corners are pretty much slack water.

I did see a few small smallmouth bass, lots of little sunfish. A dozen of 15 suckers swam under me, I really couldn't tell if they were white or yellow suckers? Several times I'd get a glimpse of something, couldn't tell what it was.

I don't know what percentage those fish dress out. Next time I get a big on I'll check it out.

Good luck catching a big catfish. Not sure what the favorite bait would be for fishing in the Ohio River? Around here most folks would use chicken liver for catfish.

We have that big chicken processing plant here in town, and can buy them cheap. Heather that worked for me, she's salary at the plant, I sent her a message yesterday, asked her to get me 10 pounds of livers and 5 pounds of hearts. I'll bag them up and sell them for bait. With the holiday coming up, there should be lots of people out fishing.

Talking about how a fish will dress out and all, I'd say the bigger the fish, the higher percentage of meat you'd get. Not positive, but seems to me that it would be true.

Search: How to fillet a crappie. I watched a Utube video the other day, the man cleaning the fish made it look easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvE9hhPoTNA

Last Sunday I went out with intentions of swimming and finding some good junk. The river below town was muddy, so I went on downstream to where I wanted to go to start with. Thinking maybe I could get ahead of the muddy water, it wasn't quite as dirty, but wouldn't have been able to see 2 feet or less. I never got my gear out.

There was a young man fishing at one of the places where I like to search for junk. He had a rental canoe, said he was from Solomon, Maryland. He was fishing with some kind of grub on a leadhead jig. Some kind of big plug on his levelwind reel in the canoe. He hadn't had a nibble yet.

For some reason, I got the impression that the young man felt out of his "zone". Not because of me or anything. But you take a young man, a long way from home and alone, I think that he was intimidated by the river. That's good in a way and bad in a way. Hard to explain, but you need to respect the little rivers too.

Where I talked to the young guy, we were about 75 yards above the start of the meanest patch of water for miles. We could hear the water splashing around on the rocks down there. I remember the boy said: I'm in no hurry. We only talked for a minute or so, and the last thing I said to him was: Ok, have a safe trip. And I hope he did!

But if he lost his tackle and all, I hope I'm the one that finds it. lol. That was a $100 baitcasting reel he had laying across the canoe.

Most times our rivers are calm and easy to work in a canoe, but when they get up 2 or 3 or 4 feet, it's a different game.

I'm waiting for it to warm up, we were down in 50's last night. Think I'll go back down there and go swimming. I'll probably find some junk. Hope the water is clear.