Holy hell... And so many get turned back, too. I keep some eater-sized channel cats (roughly 4-13 pounds for females and the males stop being really good eaters at less than that.) And all the flatheads get released nowadays, at least until they make a good comeback in my area.

But, it ain't all about the meat. It's mostly about the getaway time. And the fuckin addiction to catching them. Time spent catching bait and long nights with no bites are okay, too. A bad day fishing is better than a good day working.

All my trout gear was useless against the bastards, so it was a total rebuild of gear over the years. And them big-assed hooks ain't cheap. It's easy to go overboard especially with the store-bought baits, and then figure out that fishing was better when you were fishing with the stuff you caught around the river anyways..