Channel Cat battle at Calamus!

I went out early in the morning with my cousin to try to catch some fish at the Calamus Reservoir near Burwell, NE. He and I went out with the intent to catch some catfish as we knew that Calamus was a pretty good channel catfish reservoir for Nebraska. We got up around 6:30am and hit the lake around 7:00am. We were fishing for around 3 hours catching several drum while getting several small bites here and there. He and I were just looking at the lake and talking about more trips that we'll have in the future to Calamus when one of my poles in the pole holder just took a big hit. I went down and took the pole out of the holder and began to reel in the line. The line was slack so it was definitely not normal. As I was reeling in the slack line, the hooked fish just took off and went back for deeper water. I was using circle hooks, in this case a 5/0 Eagle Claw Circle Hook, so apparently hooking the fish wasn't a problem. The fish was just peeling drag out of my reel and I knew it was a big one. I was well equipped with 65# test Power Pro Braid with a 30# Berkley Big Game mono leader and it took me only a few minutes to land the fish. As I was reeling it in, I saw the fish roll in the water and my cousin and I knew that it was a big channel cat like we were after. I got the fish into visible range and was ecstatic to see how big it was. I got the fish out of the water, weight and measured it and took some pictures with it. The fish weighed in at 22# 5oz and was 27" long which totally destroyed my previous personal best for a channel catfish. I said thanks to the fish and sent it back on it's way into the Calamus Reservoir. That fish is definitely one to remember and it got me itching to catch a bigger fish. I will be going back to Calamus to catch another one or possibly going to Merritt reservoir to try for an even bigger channel cat. They are an exciting fish to catch!