Early Morning Fishing Catches a Hog

On Sunday, you may have seen that we got out early to do some fishing. We headed out at 5:45 to grab some minnows and were on our way to some abandoned farm ponds deep in the woods where a new development is being built. It didn't take long for the fish to realize that food was falling from the sky. We had strike after strike on minnows and rooster tails.

Matt tossed in a minnow on a bobber and leaned his pole against a tree. He just bought a new baitcasting reel and had yet to tweak the settings, much less figure out where the drag was. A moment later, his bobber is sucked underwater, his line starts reaching for the middle of the pone, and his pole starts toward the water line. He grabs it and sets the hook, but the drag continues to sing. He's unable to reel due to the lack of drag and uses his thumb as a stop on the spool. It was about this time that I started filming with my phone. The bass breaches the surface and shows it's size. We both are shocked. With Matt being unable to reel, he reverts back to his 4 year old ways and starts backing away from the water. As the fish gets closer to the bank, it heads for some tree branches in the water. I quickly grab the line and guide it back to the open water and the bank. I lip the bass and am struck by the shear size of this old pond bass. Matt and I don't ever strictly bass fish, so this thing is a monster to us. We set it on  a stringer for about 3 hours as we continued to fish, then it took us 45 minutes to find a fish scale. By this time, the big bass had lost considerable weight and started to dry up. The "dry" weight was over 5 pounds with a length of 21 inches. I can only imagine how much weight was lost prior to our weighing it.

2012-2013 Oklahoma Hunting Regulations Available Online

Although only in draft form, the 2012-2013 Oklahoma Hunting Regulations are now available online. They have a section dedicated to the changes for this season which are worth looking at to avoid any possible issues in the field this year. You can view them here: 2012-2013 Oklahoma Hunting Regulations

The Rate of Growth of Flathead Catfish

 I found a great resource online recently that has a lot of material from Oklahoma state biologists dating back to 1921. Over the next few blogs, we'll be posting up some information from those resources. All rights reserved and credit goes to those Biologists who did the work.


The Rate of Growth of Flathead Catfish
in Twenty-one Oklahoma Lakes
H. A. McCOY, Oklahoma Game and FIsh Department, Norman, 1953



In the computation of average lengths in individual waters, fish were grouped into year-classes and a weighted average was obtained. The simple average of the weighted means for each lake was computed 'to establish the average length at the end of each year of life for the entire sample. On the basis of this sample, flathead catfish average about 4.6 inches at the end of the first year of life, and during the succeeding 13 years attain average lengths of 9.7, 15.2, 20.0, 23.4, 25.9, 28.9, 32.4 35.1, 38.3, 39.0, 41.5, 42.8, and 43.3 inches. Corresponding average weights at these lengths (calculated from length-weight formula in later section are approximately 0.03, 0.31, 1.34, 3.28, 5.47, 7.61, 10.88, 15.77,20.48, 27.20, 28.87, 36.32, 39.06, and 40.67 pounds, respectively. The average annual increment of growth in length is approximately flve inches tor the tirst four years of Ufe, three inches during the following six. years, and decreases to about one inch per year by the fourteenth year (Table II, Figure 1). The average annual increment of growth in weight ae~leratea sharply to about five pounds per year by the ninth year of life (Figure 1). On the basis of three-year moving averages the rate of weight increase declines slighUy after the tenth year of Ufe. However, this phenomenon is not typical of large reservoir populations




AGE-GROUP     NUMBER OF FISH     AVERAGE LENGTH    LENGTH RANGE
III                                   4                                      18.4                       16.9-20.0
IV                                   3                                      22.9                       21.7-23.5
V                                    17                                    27.45                     25.6-28.7
VI                                   4                                      32.2                       30.6-34.3
VII                                  4                                      36.2                       31.6-38.5
VIII                                 -                                       -                            -
IX                                   2                                      40.5                       39.8-41.1
X                                    3                                      38.0                       33.5-39.0
XI                                   6                                      39.5                       36.0-46.0
XII                                  4                                      45.7                       43.0-48.0
XIII                                 9                                      44.2                       41.2-54.5
XIV                                 6                                      44.6                       43.1-46.7
XV                                  5                                      46.3                       41.2-55.5
XVI                                 4                                      43.7                       37.2-50.5
XVII                                1                                      43.1
XVIII                               2                                      43.2                       42.0-44.5
XIX                                 1                                       42.0


A 42.0-inch, 19-year-old flathead catfish taken from Boomer Lake was
the oldest individual in the entire sample, and is the oldest individual of
any Oklahoma species on record at the Fisheries Research Laboratory.

The largest flathead catfish represented in the entire sample was 55.5 inches
long and weighed 95 pounds. This 15-year-old individual, taken from
Boomer Lake, has a calculated weight of 91 pounds.

The Length-Weight Relationship of Flathead Catfish in Oklahoma Water.
SIZE INTERVAL     No. of      AVERAGE TOTAL     AVERAGE WEIGHT     CALCULATED
(INCHE8)                FISH       LENGTH (INCHES)         (POUNDS)             WEIGHT (POUND8)
------
3.0- 4.9                    12                    4.2                                 0.03                             0.02
5.0- 6.9                    20                    5.9                                 0.08                             0.06
7.0- 8.9                    37                    7.9                                 0.18                             0.16
9.0-10.9                   33                    10.0                               0.36                             0.34
1l.0-12.9                  27                    11.9                               0.69                              0.60
13.0-14.9                 36                    13.8                               0.91                             0.98
16.0-16.9                 20                    15.8                               1.37                             1.51
17.0-18.9                 26                    17.9                               2.15                             2.29
19.0-20.9                 17                    19.9                               3.14                             3.23
21.0-22.9                 12                    22.0                               4.25                             4.47
23.0-24.9                 22                    23.8                               5.93                             5.82
26.0-26.9                 26                    26.1                               7.80                             7.77
27.0-28.9                 32                    27.8                               10.16                           9.58
29.0-30.9                 19                    29.9                               12.21                           12.12
31.0-32.9                 14                    31.9                               15.67                           15.05
33.0-34.9                 13                    33.6                               18.26                           17.76
35.0-36.9                 14                    36.1                               23.50                           22.44
37.0-38.9                 14                    37.6                               25.94                           25.60
39.0-40.9                 8                      39.6                               30.07                           30.46
41.0-42.9                 7                      41.7                               35.24                           35.87
43.0-44.9                 11                    43.6                               40.35                           41.43
45.0-46.9                 1                      45.7                               50.00                           48.35
Total Number of Fish - 421

Season 2 DVD of #DeerTour is Released

The time has finally come, the 2011 #DeerTour DVD has been released. Matt and I were Huntography's final stop on the 2011 #DeerTour and have been looking forward to seeing the entire tour wrapped into a DVD. The first season's DVD was top-notch quality and I know this season will be nothing less than spectacular. Below is the trailer for the DVD.



If you would like to purchase your own copy, you can navigate to the Huntography Store. The cost is $20.11 which includes shipping.