Day/night trip at 3 spots, mixed bag + 2 BIG cats

[crustyangler17]

Started off at a small mucky pond in east brunswick i never fished before but knew about. Got 1 dink bass then snagged a tree stump and left. Next was the millstone river, hit a new stretch with the trusty big inline spinner. Had a couple nice strikes but no hookups. Switched to a buzzbait and nailed an 18" pick on the first cast but nothing after that.

Before it got too dark i gathered 4 sunnies in the canal for live catfish bait. Headed back down to the millstone with 2 rods, not expecting much. Half an hour in, getting nice tugs on one rod, reeled in slowly (circle hook) and hooked a bullhead. Have no clue how he got his mouth around the sunny and 4/0 hook . Put the same rod back out with another baby sunny. a while later, i hear zzzzzzzzzzzzz! and then nothing, picked up the rod, BOOM, he came back a second later. reeled in my first ever channel cat on a live sunny, what iv'e been trying to do for the past month. And a good one at that: 20.5" and around 4lbs. Cast back out, wait a while longer, zzzzzzzzzzz! again, picked it up and started reeling. this time it swam towards me and didn't feel too big at first, but once near shore it was tug o war with a beast. after tiring out i hauled the fish up the bank, line ready to snap but barley landed him. 25.5" and around 7 lbs, the biggest all year . had no more live sunnies after that so i chunked the dead ones and got 1 more bullhead. all fish were on the same rod for some reason. the cooling temps always brings the channels back out!