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  The Conroe Cajun Catfish Festival
This festival is several notches above the basic community festival. The Conroe Cajun
Catfish Festival annually draws 30,000 to 40,000people to hear it's stellar music line-up, browse through the many craft booths and exhibits and eat a variety of Cajun style food, including Catfish! A strong regional attraction, the featival is beginning to attract
nation wide attention. The Festival benefits the non-profit Friends of Conroe, Inc., who are working to enhance the quality of life in Conroe and Montgomery County through civic and cultural
improvements. The Friends contribute funds to other established nonprofit organizations, promote community projects and support the renovation of the downtown Conroe area. The
Conroe Kids Fest is another community project that is supported each year.
Prior to the 2009 Festival, the TPWL began filming a documentary. The film crew interviewed many of our local Lake Conroe fishermen and some of the Lake Conroe Fishing Guides that support the
Festival. Many of those interviewed participate in a fishing contest that is held in conjunction with the Festival each year.
On October 30th and 31st, 2009 Alan Fisher, TPWL photographer returned to the Lake to document several aspects of catfish fishing that occur on the Lake. The afternoon of the 30th and most of the
night, local experienced “Jug Line” fishermen demonstrated the techniques of Jug Line fishing with tremendous success. They were able to film and record lots of catfish being caught on the Jug Lines.
See pictures of big fish below. One boat limited out and had to return early.
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On Friday, October 31 Carl Bostick of WetHook Guide Service and Brett Radabaugh of CatTales Guide Service spent the day on the Lake with the film crew filming the techniques of ‘drift fishing’, shallow water dock fishing and vertical fishing over baited catfish holes. They were able to catch good numbers of fish that day and the film crew recorded the entire days trip from boat preparation, type of bait used, locations and stragedy. It was a great day on the Lake. The film crew rode with Papa John most of the day on his boat and then got onboard with Carl and Brett for some close up shooting.
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The fishing tournament associated with the Conroe Cajun Catfish Festival
was was a little slow due to lossing a couple weeks because of hurricane Ike.
With the Lake off limits for several days, all of the aftermath of hurricane Ike and the demands on the time of all the fishermen, the numbers of fish caught in the 2008 tournament were much lower than usual. The tournament winner in 2008 was Morris Taymon with a 47 pound 9 once Flathead Catfish. Past tournaments with normal fishing conditions have produced some huge fish as pictured on this page.
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