There’s something very special about river fishing. I grew up a few miles from the Red River in Red River County and have fond memories of bank fishing along the river. I remember my dad telling me there was a dam many miles upstream that impounded a huge body of water situated along the Texas/Oklahoma border called Lake Texoma.
I was well into my twenties before I discovered Texoma and sampled the great striper fishing there. Back forty or so years ago, I was invited to fish the Red River below the dam by guide J.C. McCullough from his airboat. I remember the trip vividly. We were freelining live shad just behind the dam. The drill was pretty simple; J.C. would ease the airboat into the current up to the ‘off limits’ buoys, we would toss out big gizzard shad and the current would drift us downriver. The bite was always instantaneous, stripers from down river had traveled as far as they could go and they were present in huge numbers and they were hungry.
Stripers and catfish, mostly blues, were there feeding on the zillions of shad that came through the flood gates. Through the years, I enjoyed many trips on this stretch of river with J.C. and never failed to catch fish, lots of them.
Just last week, I was once again invited to fish this stretch of river with J.C. and once he fired the airboat up and started to the first ‘catfish hole’ downstream, in my minds eye, I was once again a budding young outdoors writer experiencing a very exciting way of catching fish and collecting fodder for my articles. Things had changed very little along this stretch of river. On this trip we were targeting blue catfish, fishing some of the deeper holes that J.C. knows about.
As we headed to our first spot to fish, J.C. pointed toward the bank and asked if I remembered the story of how he began fishing the river as a boy. My good friend Jeff Rice was with us fishing and filming a segment of our TV show “A Sportsmans Life” and I wanted Jeff to hear the story. It was very interesting. J.C. is definitely a self-made man. He did not live a privileged life as a youngster. As a matter of fact as a teenager, he lived in a shack up on the banks of the river he built from scrap lumber, tarps and whatever else he could find to create four walls and a roof.
As we motored to the fishing hole, he talked about his early years.
“I have always been good at fishing, hunting and trapping," J.C. began. "It was God’s gift to me. In those days there were very few wild hogs or deer but the woods were full of squirrel and rabbits and quail were plentiful. In the winter, there were lots of ducks. Catching fish in the river was easy and I basically lived on them. I would keep a couple of trotlines set and never remember going hungry. I do remember eating fish for breakfast, but," he kidded, "I still do that from time to time. I had an old wood-burning stove in the little shack and, when the weather was cold or rainy, I cooked inside. Otherwise, I cooked on a grill over a little cookfire outside the shack."
J.C. lived off the land much of his teenage years and earned a living as a commercial fisherman. When in his twenties, he began guiding fishing trips for stripers and catfish on the lake and in the river and now as a very active seventy-year-old, he is still a very active guide. He has definitely mastered his craft!
About a half mile down river, J.C. eased the throttle back on the airboat and tossed out a couple of anchors to keep the boat in position. We were fishing a deeper hole in the river that proved to be full of catfish, mostly blues. The river is low now and fish are concentrated in the deeper stretches of water, kind of like catching fish in a barrel with the barrel comprising several acres!
The technique was simple, we used medium-action spinning rod and reels to toss out fresh-cut shad. We were fishing without weights thus the line was slack which at first took some getting used to. There was no need to try to fish on a tight line, when the blue catfish hit, they hit hard and slack was quicky taken out and the fight was on.
The action was fast paced on blues up to about ten pounds. We were all hoping to catch a big ‘picture fish’ and J.C. expected it to happen because most recent trips have produced a few trophy-class fish.
We had motored downriver to fish another hotspot. I was sitting on the right side of the boat and J.C. instructed me to cast toward the middle of the river. He and Jeff were fishing the deeper water on the other side of the boat. I was joking with J.C. about putting me in unproductive water. I had the rod butt set in a rod holder and was focusing more on joking with my buddies than fishing.
And the out of the corner of my eye I noticed the rod tip bowed toward the water heavily. It was tough to winch it loose; an obviously big fish was putting lots of pressure on the line. Fighting a big catfish is a game of tug of war. The trick is to keep pressure on the fish and let the rod and reel’s drag do the work...let the fish tire itself out before trying to net him.
After about five minutes of a serious isometrics workout, the big blue came boatside and slid into J.C’s oversize net. I’ve caught a lot of nice blues on rod and reel out of the red but this one, about 40 pounds, was my biggest. Jeff was able to capture the action on film and you can watch it now on YouTube or Carbon TV, just search “A Sportsmans Life”.
It was great reconnecting with my long-time friend J.C. Our talk always goes to hunting; we’ve enjoyed some fun and productive deer and waterfowl hunts together through the years. J.C. told us all about a deer hunting operation he is doing in the fall on government land above Lake Texoma. He sets stands in remote, basically wilderness land along the river and during hunting season, transports hunters to these spots with his airboat.
He can’t ‘guide’ on these public lands but as he says, “I do all the hard part scouting, setting up stands and transporting hunters into and out of the remote spots. I run cameras throughout the summer and fall to determine the best spots.”
He showed me some photos on his phone of some bruiser bucks taken the past few seasons. After loading a ‘bunch’ of catfish fillets in the cooler, we made plans for more fishing this summer and a wilderness deer hunt this fall.
It was great to spend time with my old buddy again. Give him a call to talk about his outdoor adventures. His number is 580-372-0320.
Listen to Luke’s weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” just about everywhere podcasts are found. Email Luke through his website at www.catfishradio.org
