The Hunt For Big Fish with Larry Dahlberg

Larry,

I need your help! A few months ago in spring I was fishing for crappie on a river. There was a big oak tree that fell in the water and looked like a good fishing hole. I was tearing up the crappie!!!! I was reeling in a good sized crappie and what i thought what was dinner a HUGE flathead came up and swallowed my crappie ! I Knew that my 6 lb test was not going to hold up. It snapped like sewing thread! I want to know what reel,rod,and line you would recommend? I want REVENGE on that catfish.

I had something similar happen last spring. I was fishing my buddies lake that has some BIGGGG flatheads in it. I was actually trying to target chanel cats using night crawlers. Anyway, I got a little tap tap but the fish didn't commit to it, a few minutes later, the same thing happened so I set the hook and it felt like I grabbed some seaweed or a small bluegill at best. Well I was real in to rebait and WHAMMMMYYYY it felt like i hooked into a dumptruck going the other way. After a long fight in the dark, I beached a 40 inch flathead on some old bluegill nests. While me and my buddy where trying to figure out what to do and how to grab the beast he spit out a 14" yellow pearch that originally ate my worm. I grabbed the pearch and looked at its mouth and I never had the flathead hooked, the hook never even went through the pearch's jaw, it was skin hooked on the inside and the catfish was just hanging on to what he thought was going to be dinner.