After my wife & kids went to bed last night, I went fishing. I fished from about 9:30pm to 11:45pm at a local public pond.
I caught my first fly-rod channel catfish of the season! It measured at 18", and hit a yellow boa yarn leech.
I also caught a 14" largemouth bass, at least 41 crappies (all 9" or less), and at least 11 bluegills (all under 7.5").
It was a nice night to be out, and catching the catfish really made my trip :p!
Sounds like a fine dad’s night out!
David,
That is a great looking Cat!
Doug
This is a really nice fish! Now I have to go check all the ponds to see where I can catch one too.
iaflyfisher
Hey, you actually do go fishing once in a while 
Congrats on a special catch, sounds like a fast and furious evening. Warm water variety is super cool and I bet that cat put the old tug on the rod. The drug is the tug and I bet that fish complied.
Rick
Were you actually targeting the catfish? Considering the other things you caught (50 panfish under 9"), I’d say that was probably a WHOA! kind of hit…
I wasn’t targeting the catfish, although my recent few trips (since our rainstorms) had me believing the cats were active in the shallows along the banks. When the water warms up into the 70’s, I’ll target both bass and catfish at night with fly rod poppers.
And on certain ponds if the water is clear enough, you can spot fish working the shallows during the day, and I’ll target them specifically then, too.
So, yeah, it was a nice surprise, although not totally unexpected. Excellent fight! I was really worried the barbless hook would shake loose as the fish battled, but everything worked out nicely.
Man, I have some great memories of channel cats from my youth, but they weren’t on a fly rod. More like a big chunk of shrimp on a treble hook. My dad loved to go out all night and burned tires for light and warmth. My how times have changed.
Congrats, and thanks for the pics.
Kelly
Great looking fish Dave. You must have one great pond to provide you with such good fishing. Course the fisherman must be pretty good too 
Whoa Dave, that’s a lunker. Congrats.
I haven’t been able to get out in a month.
Its a good little secret for now.
There’s 2 or 3 other ponds in town that were pretty good fishing last year, and have been absolutely horrible this year. I know all 3 got hit really hard by ice-fishermen. That in itself isn’t necessarily bad, but they seem to have harvested way more than what the ponds can reasonably tolerate. I ice-fished them too, and they started out good at the beginning of the season. But by mid ice-season, there were holes everywhere, and I hole-hopped and couldn’t even mark fish ANYWHERE with my electronics. 
I’ve always released every fish I’ve caught from these ponds.
So, I will enjoy this pond until it gets ruined, too. For now, its also a good place to take kids to get them interested in fishing/fly-fishing.