Trotline fishing in Texas is a great way to have some fun and stock up on fresh fish. Our part of Texas has been in a drought for the past 7 or 8 years, so we haven’t been able to fish much or get a boat in the local river. God blessed us with a lot of rain earlier this year so the Texas Colorado river level is high enough to navigate the river in a boat and go fishing.
Since it has been a while since we could take a boat on the local Colorado river, I asked my younger brother to take us on a boat tour down the river. He offered to bait and run trotlines in addition to the boat tour. Just in case you have never heard of a trotline, it is a long cord with a fish hook every three feet and a few weights to hold the line in place. You stretch the cord across the river, bait the hooks and leave the trotlines out overnight. Then you periodically check the lines to see if you caught any fish.
Trotline Fishing With Grandpa
I grew up watching my Grandfather and brothers trotline fish. My Grandfather was a sheep rancher and owned land on the Texas Colorado river. When we weren’t in a drought and there was enough water for fishing, he loved to set out trotlines. Grandpa liked to bait the line late in the day and ‘run’ the line to check for fish several time times during the night.
When Grandpa baited and ran the line he would wade the river. The river wasn’t very deep back then as we didn’t have many dams down river (4-5 feet). As I mentioned above, Grandpa liked to check the lines for fish during the night time hours. I didn’t like the idea of standing in waist/chest high water after dark with turtles/snakes/fish on many of the hooks. And for some reason, there was usually only one flashlight. So I was grateful that my brothers normally helped him run the trotlines during the middle of the night.
The few times I went trotlining with Grandpa during the night, Grandpa would take the fish off the hook and toss the fish into a ‘tow’ sack (burlap bag). My job was to hold the flashlight and if there was a large fish on the line, he would need help trying to corral the fish. I wasn’t very helpful on these occasions and mainly held my breath hoping I wouldn’t be mauled. The fish weren’t usually very large, but to a 12 year old a 4 lb fish can seem like a monster. I also remember getting turtles and gar on the trotlines. It was always fun to watch Grandpa take a turtle or a gar off of the hook. The gars have such a long snout with all those sharp teeth that I thought we were shark fishing.
Current Day Trotlining
Times have changed some in our family. Grandpa is in heaven, but my family still owns the land on the river and still likes trotline fishing. When we are not in a drought, the river can be 15-25 feet deep. Today we have a small aluminum boat with an outboard motor that can be used to bait and run the trotlines. Since the water is deeper, there is potential for bigger fish.
On July 4th this year, we decided to have our boat/trotline trip. Late in the day on July 3rd, we caught perch for the trotline bait. Catching small perch for bait is one of my favorite parts of trotline fishing. To catch the perch, we use a little bitty hook with a small amount of worm. Unlike catfish fishing, you don’t need lots of worm and the worm doesn’t need to cover the hook. We needed enough live perch for 2 trotlines, so we caught around 75 perch.
Baiting the Trotlines
The trotlines were previously set out by my nephew down river from our land. So we pointed the boat down river and began looking for the lines. Each trotline is marked by a small flag on both sides of the river. I saw several other flags that weren’t ours, so I guess we’re not the only trotline fishermen in this part of the river.
When I was a kid It was always fun to get wet while wading to bait the trotlines. It was usually summer and hot, and the thrill of a potential big fish was fun. I like baiting the trotlines from a boat even better. For one thing, you get to go a lot further down the river. There is interesting scenery along the way and you feel like going to deeper water means bigger fish!
Baiting the lines isn’t the same as I remember from my childhood. As an adult, the perch seemed a lot more slippery and harder to hold. Have perch gotten slicker over the years or is it just me? I can’t imagine my Grandfathers reaction if I had dropped every perch I tried to put on the hook when we were wading to bait the lines. There would have been a lot of hooks that didn’t get any bait.
Running the Trotlines
We decided to run the lines the next morning and not 3 or 4 times during the night, which was a relief to me. I think even Grandpa would understand that going down river in a boat at 3:00 a.m. is a bit much.
My brothers and nephews have been catching several 6 – 8 lb fish on the trotlines this year, so I was expecting a lot of ‘medium’ size fish on our lines. Our first few hooks were empty, no bait and no fish. My Grandpa always said that an empty hook meant that gar stole the bait. Gar fish were a bit of a curse word with Grandpa.
About halfway down the line, still no fish but we began to feel a tug on the line. There was definitely something on the line. I thought about turtles, the feared gar, and even snakes. I began to hope for a nice 4 or 5 lb catfish. The closer we got to the end of the line, the swirl got much bigger. I began to hope for an 8-10 lb fish.
When we reached the swirl, we realized that we had forgotten the dip net. My brother actually stuck his arms in the water to bring the fish in, but didn’t bring it in on the first attempt. After a few more tries, he hauled in a large yellow cat fish. We only had a fish basket and no tow sack. The fish wouldn’t fit in a basket, so my brother dropped the fish in the bottom of the boat by my feet. Oh yeah – lots of flipping and flopping! Glad I wore old shoes.
After running one line, only one fish. At least it was a big fish. The other line was set out further up river by our land, so we headed up the river. This line still had most of the bait on the hooks. As we got near the end of the line, we saw another big swirl. The fish had a lot more fight than the first fish and gave my brother some interesting pulls on the line. This fish was a blue cat fish and was large, but not as large as the yellow cat.
Cleaning the Fish
Two trot lines, two fish. Doesn’t sound too impressive until you consider the size of the fish. The yellow cat weighed 34.6 pounds, the blue cat weighed 26.8 pounds. I’ve never cleaned a catfish bigger than 4 pounds, so I was out of my league on cleaning these fish. My brother used an electric knife and filleted the fish while we washed and bagged the fillets. These are some of the bigger fish caught this year on the trotlines, so my brother hung the fish heads in the ‘trophy tree’.
We cooked some of the fish the next day and froze the rest. We used corn-meal batter and fried the fish, they were excellent.
Regardless of how many or what size fish we catch, trotline fishing is a great deal of fun. Trotline fishing in Texas is always exciting, but river floating is worth a try when it is too hot to fish. The hot summer weather is the only reason that I am not suggesting another trotline fishing trip. However, more big fish might be worth going out in the 100 degree weather, and if we run the lines at 3:00 a.m. it will be cooler (ha ha).