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This fish was caught on the James River in Richmond, VA. There are plenty of cats like this one out there too. Not that I ever catch them. That fish is my biggest so far. Before that one my biggest was 39 pounds.

I like to use a penn 320gt2 or an Okuma 202L or 302L. I use a lot of different rods. Any ugly stick will do but it’s always best to have a rod with some good backbone to pull these monsters up. I like to have a flexible tip too.

For bait we use cut gizzard shad. We catch them by throwing cast nets.

The rig I use is a basic Fish finder rig with an 8/0 Gamakatsu Oct Circle hook. We use weight any where from 6 - 12 oz. to hold bottom. We always use flat weights too so they don’t roll in the current.

The best place to find a big cat in a tidal river like the James to like another fish find Structure (logs, sunken barges, channel edges, creeks, flats, holes...)

You can see some more of my cats at http://ramsites.net/~cannonjs/index.html and go to the pictures link.

Also the Va. State Record holder (72 pound Cat) has a site with a few of his pics. I just happen to be the one who runs his site [:-] www.hughscatfishing.com

Also I don’t know if any of you guys live near Va. but I am putting n a catfish tournament on Dec. 7th with a lot of great prizes including a free guided trip with the state record holder. Details at www.catchbigfish.net

Did I answer everything...

Oh yeah the story...

Well me and my friend went out looking for the big one and were having terrible luck. We hadn’t caught anything all day. We meet up with another friend who was heading down river so we went too. We went into a creek off the main river and found a nice little place were a smaller creek met the main creek (i.e. structure). So we set up there. Finally one rod goes down. My friend reels it in and while we are fighting it another rod goes off. We got the first one in and it was about 14 pounds. So I start fighting the 2nd one and i didn’t think he was extremely big maybe low 30#' s, which is still good. Eventually i realized he was bigger when his head finally came tot he top of the water. We got really nervous FAST! After three tries with the net we finally landed the fish. I use a really big net probably 30" x 35" . Well he bent the pole on the net trying to bring him in. But we got him. We were fishing in about 10' of water.

Anything else?

sorry this was so long.:D