Fish-Hawk.Net

Thursday night I had the opportunity (finally) to get my boat out. I fished around Quyon. I managed two small walleyes, t15{e of taps on my rod. I set the hook and it felt real heavy. I thought I had a huge walleye on. Finally after about 5 minutes the fish surfaced and it was a huge catfish. The fish I would estimate weighed around 10 pounds. Here is the embarrassing thing, being from Alberta I have never caught a catfish before. I heard that if you dont handle cats correctly you can injure your hands. I released the fish by holding the line and using hook removers, luckily the hook was in the fishes lip. Can someone advice me on the proper way to handle catfish? The same night at the same place, I also hooked into something that swam around a little bit than stayed right on the bottom. I eventually broke my line trying to get him up. Interesting for sure!