East Texas has become famous for its winter trophy blue catfish fishing, with Lake Palestine ranking number two behind Lake Tawakoni. Robert Holloway recently caught a 48.2 pound lake rod and reel record from Lake Palestine.

Fishing four poles Holloway was about to call it a day when the fish took the bait. He reported the fish went down, but it didn’t stay down like normal. The big Blue swam to the left 80 yards out and then did a 180-degree turn to the other side of the boat and got in the anchor line. Fishing alone it took him several minutes to land the big fish, realizing that neither his net nor his live well were big enough for a fish that was 45.5 inches long and 31.75 inches in girth. His previous big blue catfish was a 32-pounder.

March, April and May are all good catfish catching months, but March and April have been his best months. He attributes it the warming water temperature, switching to drift fishing.

When he caught his record fish he was sitting in 7 feet of water and fishing only 3- to 4-feet deep. Holloway only uses 25-pound monofilament line in case he is drifting and needs to break off. He does use a 50-pound leader the last two feet to a No. 7 circle hook, a style he uses because of the hook-up success over the years.

Photo courtesy Robert Holloway