It's been a fun week on Lake Norman. Thursday, I took part in the annual Operation North State fishing festival which pairs wounded service men and women with host boats for a day of fishing. The veterans are always so happy to get out on the lake and put some lines in the water. For this year's event, I had Clayton and Albert on board, and they wanted to catch fish to take home with them. So we downsized the cat baits and targeted a large creek that had been producing keeper blues, crappie and spots. We filled the cooler and sent each of them home with two gallon bags full of filets to eat.

We had 7 year old Cameron and his dad Emilio out catfishing today. Cameron's biggest catfish before today was a eater sized channel cat, and we upped his game with the first blue cat at 11 pounds. We hooked some spotted bass, white perch, a channel cat and more blue cats and were stuck at 17 pounds for biggest fish, until a 42 pound bruiser inhaled a white perch head.

Cameron was able to crank in the other fish, but this one was super strong, and it turned into a tag team event between Cameron and Emilio to finally get the fish to the boat. It's always treat to see everyone's face when a big cat comes to the surface for the first time!

Beautiful sunny spring day on Lake Norman. More good fishing to come before the spawn later next month