Flathead catfish as a good goodbye: Young visitor catches a memorable flathead from the Fox River

Evan LaFave put an exclamation point on his summer visit when the 16-year-old Californian caught a flathead catfish to remember from the Fox River.

“After being here for the entire summer, we were wrapping up our poles thinking we got skunked, but then this flathead hit just as we were about to leave,” his uncle Alan Rovge emailed. “Not bad for the final fish of his long trip.”

LaFave, who was with his cousin Cal Rovge (Alan’s son), was using 8-pound line on a baitcaster.

“Caught this beast on a live chub that we caught as bait in a nearby creek,” LaFave posted on his YouTube channel. “Could have filmed this whole thing as a food chain fishing challenge type deal, but this vid is short and sweet. Hooked into him right as we were packing up to go, on my last day in the Midwest.

The video and others may be seen on LaFave’s Thunderbent YouTube page.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).