Ultralight vs heavyweight

Ethan's first MA goldeye

This story has little to do with fly fishing and falls in the category of "an unexpected fish". I was spending a few hours on the La Salle River with my grand kids, daughter and son-in-law and as usual got there a bit early. And as is usual I pulled out a fly rod, this time a 2 wt and caught a nice drum before they arrived. On arrival, they blanketed the shoreline waters with bobbers and the fly rod was put away.  Several nice fish were caught including 2 MA goldeye caught by Ethan and his dad, Gord. After I untangled a few lines and baited a hook or two interest among the youngsters dwindled and this old guy was given another chance to fish.  With the kids running around, the fly rod would still require too much attention on the back cast so out came the ultralight spinning rod with 4 lb test line and a 1/16 oz tube jig. I had caught many rock bass in this area in previous years and my setup would a perfect way to probe the rocky shorelines for rock bass or crappie. A dozen or so casts produced nothing and I sailed the jig out across the current as far as it would go and slowly started hopping it back.  Suddenly it stopped, acting exactly like it had been snagged, except that after repeated jerks to recover the jig, "the snag" moved over about a foot.  This was not a snag and it was not small. Luckily, the fish didn't panic for the first 10 minutes or so and just swam around the pool while I applied constant, but not very heavy, pressure. A dash for the tail of the pool with its attendant brush and log piles would likely have ended in disaster. By the time the fish realized something bad was happening to it I was able to stop the runs short of the log jam . Also by now everyone else fishing the pool had left to fish elsewhere since this wasn't going to end soon and the fish's erratic runs made fishing in the pool by anyone else impossible. By now I thought I might actually have a chance at landing this fish; possibly a channel cat but also perhaps a carp or even big walleye, pike or drum. The runs became shorter, the load on the diminutive rod less and eventually the fish came to net. My grandson Ethan did a superb job of netting the fish, a 34 inch channel cat. As always, after agreeing to a few pictures, the cat slid back into the depths of the pool to await another lucky fisherman.