Katie Allen admits she is still climbing the learning curve on catfishing,
but it is quite clear that she enjoys the work. (Contributed Photo)
Katie Allen: Climbing the Catfish Learning Curve
by Richard Simms
Slicing across the mirror-smooth surface, the fluorescent green planer board cut a gentle, steady wake. Suddenly, however, the board shot across the water like a miniature motorboat, churning glassy Watts Bar Lake to a froth.
Katie Allen leapt to her feet, grabbing the rod and cranking the reel handle like her life depended on it. In short order, the line came tight, the planer board disappeared beneath the surface, and Katie’s fishing rod doubled down on what was clearly a healthy blue catfish.
Katie stayed focused, struggling to work the fish toward the boat, but facing away from me and my camera. “Hey Katie, look at me,” I said.
When she turned her head, the huge smile lit up the lake like a beacon. All I could think was, “Wow, this girl loves this stuff.”
Katie, a dental assistant from Knoxville, Tennessee, admits she is still pretty new to the fishing game. But she is obviously a fast learner, and in short order, she wrestled the 30-pound blue into the net.
The net was held by the man who introduced Katie to the catfishing game, Marc Cooper, a hardcore YouTuber, licensed bait dealer and fishing guide.
About two years ago, like most modern-day couples, Katie and Marc met on the Internet.
“He seemed adventurous and kind,” Katie told me. “Those were some of the things I was looking for.”
“Did he say anything about catfishing,” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, he did have fish pictures on his profile,” she answered with a smile.
Nowadays Marc often lives by the mantra that says, “Give a woman a fish and she’ll eat for a day. Teach a woman to fish and she’ll outfish you for the rest of your life.”
Katie said, “I hadn’t ever fished much, but I was open to give it a try. We had a few rough trips at first, and I kind of thought, I don’t have the patience for this. But he taught me a lot of patience. And then we started getting on some good fish, and it’s been fun.”
She well remembers her first trophy catfish, weighing in at 52 pounds.
“It was way harder to get it in than I expected,” she said.
Like so many first-time catfish anglers, she couldn’t believe her eyes when she first saw the huge fish.
“I was shocked,” she said. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got a fish.’ Marc had to coach me through it quite a bit. But he had patience with me, too, so it worked out well, and we got it in the boat.”
From that point on, Katie began looking for every opportunity to get on the water. I asked, “Do you go fishing now just to keep him happy or because you want to go fishing? “
“Because I want to go,” she said, emphatically. “I wish I had more time to go. It’s hard to not go for a while and then get out and remember what I’ve been doing and how to do it. I actually end up bait fishing more than I get to fun fish.”
Bait fishing is actually one of Marc’s jobs. Besides YouTubing and guiding, part of his income comes from selling baitfish—mostly skipjacks and gizzard shad—to other catfish anglers who don’t have the time to get out and catch their own bait. He is always happy to have Katie aboard with an extra fishing rod casting for skipjacks or as a first mate when he is throwing the cast net.
“If we find them, then you can catch a lot, and it’s really fun,” she said.
But she admits that she is still climbing the learning curve. On a scale of 1 to 10, she puts her own fishing skills at a 3 or a 4. Marc puts her at a 4.5.
“I don’t think I’d be confident enough to go out and do it by myself, especially not driving the boat,” said Katie. “I’m learning the boat some, but not great. I get really nervous with it.”
Like many non-anglers, Katie has been most surprised to learn that fishing is much more than just sitting around, waiting on a fish to swim by and eat your bait.
“There are so many different ways to fish and a lot of different places that fish hang out,” she shared. “It’s way more work than I ever thought, trying to target where they’re at and how they want the bait presented.”
She surprised herself, and Marc, when she started paying attention to lake maps.
“I have actually looked at the map a time or two down around where I grew up,” she said. “I told Marc I kind of want to go fish these places. And he was like, ‘Have you been looking at the map?’”
She is also enjoying teaching her daughter all the things she is learning on the water.
“She’s warming up to it,” said Katie. “The last time we went catching skipjacks, she had a pretty good time. She’s pretty good at casting. She’s just got the touch. It’s like she just knows what she’s doing, and she’s barely done it. It only took me about two times to show her how to cast, and she had it.”
For other women who might be concerned about climbing the fishing learning curve or worried about the messier aspects of fishing, especially catfishing, Katie said, “You should definitely try it. I think it would be hard to do on your own, so find somebody you know who does it. Or there are a lot of videos on YouTube and a lot of groups on Facebook. It’s fun, and everybody should try it, especially women.”
(Capt. Richard Simms is the Editor of our sister magazine, CrappieNOW, as well as owner of Scenic City Fishing Charters. He was a game warden for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency before becoming a photographer and PR guy for TWRA. That lead to a 30-year career as a broadcast journalist and freelance outdoor writer. You can follow Capt. Simms on Facebook or contact him at Richard@ScenicCityFishing.com.)
