An Amazing Hour On the River

I'm not quite sure what to think about the month of September.  There is no other single month that has provided me with more really big flatheads.  I've had some amazing multiple monster nights during this month.  September is also when the flatties eventually shut down and disappear for 8 months.  They quickly go into this feeding frenzy that provides some of the most amazing aciton all year, and then just as quickly lock their jaws and vanish.  Shortly after I got married my wife and I went up to Silver Lake to visit my sister-in-law and her husband at his family cottage.  Not being much of a drinker, I thought that this would be a nice safe place to get my first buzz.  Somehow I ended up mixing Boone's Farm and Bacardi Limon.  I mean I literally mixed them in one glass.  I guess I figured it would get me to the buzz quicker.  Sure enough, pretty soon I was giggling at everything everyone said and the stars started dancing around in the sky.  I don't think it lasted 10 minutes before BOOM, a dull headache crawled in behind my eyes and my stomach was attacked by a churning nausea that lasted through most of the next day.  That's the month of September.

Let's stick with the buzz for this entry.  I went out alone one evening this past September.  Things were slowing down enough that I even struggled to get the suckers that I needed for bait.  I scrounged 2 or 3, cut them into big sections, and headed up river to my normal haunt.  I anchored in a spot where I had caught a good percentage of my flatties during the summer.  I'm not sure why, but before I threw out my lines I had this thought jump into my head telling me that I should move.  Just below Devil's Elbow is a 200 yard stretch of deep water.  Most of it is over 10 feet deep.  I've tried it here and there, but I mainly pick up channels in there.  Despite my record, my hunch told me to give this section a go, so I did. 

I anchored smack dab in the middle of this stretch.  I put my lines out in the normal fashion-one straight down, one further out behind the boat, and the last one off to the side.  I didn't have to wait very long before the clicker on the rig behind me started running.  I grabbed this rod and dragged in a 19-pounder.  This was a really good sign.  I barely got this rig back into the water before the pole right in front of me jumped and dipped to the river.  This was the bait that I set right under the boat.  The beast made several strong runs before I was able to get her back under the boat and into a 5 minute stalemate.  In the middle of all of this that same rod that brought in the first fish jumped back into action.  I had to ignore it and eventually the fish let go and diappeared.  I finally pulled flattie number 2 into the boat and weighed her in at 21 pounds.

Figuring that I probably wore this particular spot out, I pulled anchor and drifted until I was just up from a nice point that pokes out 30 yards into the river and slows the current.  I dropped my lines one more time and again one of my rods bounced and bent almost before I even had it set in the holder.  This was a scrappy 17-pounder.  Shock, elation, euphoria, and that stupid grin that always shows when the fishing gets better than you had expected or even hoped.

I haven't seen a flathead since I let that last fish go.  We had a pretty good cold front come through the very next day.  I tried it a few times after that, but with my teeth chattering and nothing going on under the boat, I finally had to call it a season.  It's tough to put the catfish gear away for the last time.  The only good thing about it is I get to immediately start anticipating next year.  I'm down to about 4 months.

Chasing Bait

Like any seasoned cat guy, I've developed some pretty strong opinions about which baits work best for each type of catfish at any given period during the warm weather months.  I've also worked pretty hard to figure out how to get my hands on that bait, how to keep the cost down, and how to keep it on hand at my home so that I can fish at a moment's notice.  Catching and keeping bait has actually been a fun part of my development as a catfish man.  The following is much of what I've learned.


Surprisingly, channel cats actually get quite active very early in the year.  Their pre-spawn feed starts right after ice out and lasts into June.  During this time period, the channel fishing can be phenomenal.  I had a buddy who I met on the river and ran into from time to time out there.  As we got to know each other a little bit, we started picking each other's brains about bait and tactics.  One night when we were loading our boats at the launch he started talking to me about dip bait.  I had tried a few different store bought prepared baits, but never had any luck with them.  He swore by a dip bait called Sonny's Super Sticky Channel Cat Bait.  He was real reluctant to tell me the name of his secret bait and he looked all around like he was selling me a dime bag before he pulled the jar out of a storage bin in his boat.  

I don't think that I tried it right away, but I eventually picked some up.  He was right.  Channel cats love this stuff.  I can recall one early spring Saturday afternoon when I was fishing in that basin just up from the bridge.  I had two rods out with Sonny's on both.  I literally coudn't keep both rods in the water.  I've never experienced anything like it.  I do have a few disclaimers.  First of all, flatheads won't touch the stuff.  When they get active, I lose all interest in the channels, so the dip bait goes away.  Another thing that might be obvious is that this stuff stinks.  It's pretty hard to keep it off of your hands and out of your boat.  That's another reason that I put it away by early June.  I'm tired of the mess.  I have found that buying it in the bigger buckets rather than the smaller peanut butter jar looking containers makes it much easier to manage.  You can order the bigger buckets of Sonny's through Catfish Connection.  I add just a little water, stir it up good,  and then use a hard plastic kitchen mixing spoon to push a dip worm around in the bucket until it's completely covered.  Dipping the loaded worm quickly in the water before casting is supposed to help hold everything together.  If all you want to catch is channel cats, I don't think that you can beat this stuff.   I  mainly use it in the spring, but it is money all summer long.


A couple years ago, my dad took me on a channel catfish charter on the lower Grand.  The captain's name was Dan Lipski and his charter is called River Kat Professional Guide Services.  He introduced us to cut creek chubs.  He told us that he had caught them earlier that day and put them immediately on ice.  Dan would cut the chubs in half and put both halves on a 5/0 Eagle Claw 084 hook.  He really put us into some fish.  I think that our biggest was a 12-pounder.  After seeing how well this bait worked, I made it my mission to find a good place near my house where I could catch them.  I finally found a nice little park with a creek that is loaded with them.  My kids and I have a lot of fun going there a couple of times a week to stock up our supply.  We attract a lot of attention from people in the park.  I've had more than one person try to convince me that I was catching trout.  The males do get quite big and colorful. 

I am lucky enough to have a little creek in my backyard.  A small waterfall with a little pool sits just beyond our back fence.  It's a perfect place to keep bait alive and healthy.  I had this great idea last year to build a minnow cage out of 2 x 2's and hardware cloth.  I pictured this perfectly symmetrical cage with a door on top.  It was going to work like a dream.  When I was done, the thing looked like a blind guy with one arm built it.  It was all lopsided and the door wouldn't close tight unless I put a big brick on top of it.  The cage was ugly, but it worked.    I dropped it in the pool, anchored it with some big rocks and filled it with bait.  That very night we got a big rain and it disappeared down stream.  I never saw it again.  My next idea was to drill holes in a couple of 5-gallon buckets, anchor them with rocks, and tie them to a tree.  This worked for me all of last year.  The whole time I was messing around with these ideas, my dad was telling me to just use one of those torpedo bait buckets.  I went to that at the very end of the year and it worked better than anything else.  It required no maintenance and I didn't have to wade into the creek to get my minnows.  Always listen to your dad.  

While I like keeping creek chubs on hand for those nights when I get to break away at the last minute, they haven't turned out to be my favorite bait.  Alive, they are active on the hook.  The problem is that they are part of that minnow group that gets their heads squished by channels.  When I'm fishing live bait, I'd rather use something that the channels won't touch.  As a cut bait, they seem to work fine in my stretch of the river.  I think that cut sucker out fishes them, though.  So, chubs are good in a pinch, but there is better stuff out there.

Most of the summer, I have found that you can't beat a nice medium sized bluegill for flatheads.  They are strong, they move like crazy on the hook, and the flatheads love them.  We have plenty of little parks with ponds in our area.  All of these places are good for quickly catching a night's worth of gills.  I catch an occasional gill in the river and these go immediately into the livewell for that night's fishing.  The same with rock bass.  They too are strong and struggle a lot on the hook.  I've caught a lot of flatties with live and cut rock bass.  It makes sense, since there are so many of them in the river and they tend to hang around in the same snags that hold the flatheads.

While I'm talking about live bait, I'll add bullheads.  They are supposed to be an excellent bait for flatties.  A lot of guys will say that they are the best.  I found a place near my house where I can catch them.  I usually do this after dark the night before I go to the river.   They are a lively bait, but they don't have my full confidence yet.  I've fished with them a half dozen times and have only caught one flattie with them.  I will say that when I was using a bullhead, the strike was viscious.  The flattie pounded him with an anger that actually made the rod jump in the holder.  Overall, I'll give them a B.  Around here, the efforts to catch them are a little more involved and the little buggers are difficult to handle.  I haven't been poked by their spines yet, but I've heard that it's pretty painful.  I'd take a bluegill or rock bass over a bullhead any day. 

While all of these baits can be great, my far and away favorite bait is a big piece of cut sucker.  I start most of my trips on the river stocking up on them.  It's usually not hard to do.  They are everywhere.  I seem to have my best luck in the flats between the launch and the bridge.  Two spinning rods leaning on the back bench of the boat with crawlers on a simple split shot and hook rig is all you need.  You can usually catch the necessary 5 fish in short order.  My dad discovered that you can up your catch rate by tying on a crappie rig.  On this rig, the sinker is on the bottom with two hooks snelled above off of the main line.  This rig increases the amount of bait being offered and it puts it right up off the bottom where they can easily find it. 

I keep the suckers alive until just before I'm ready to set up in my first spot.  I pull them out of the livewell, give them a good tap on the head with a small club, and start cutting.  I've found that if you don't give them that tap, they're much more likely to flip blood all over the place when you make your first cut.  I start by cutting the tail off and then I simply move up the fish, giving me 3 or 4 big round sections.  Next I remove the guts, cut off the fins, and remove the scales.  This leaves a nice big clean piece of bait.  It all goes into a tupperware container and into the cooler until I'm ready to use it.  I almost always fish one rod with cut sucker.  I generally load it onto a sharpened 7/0 or 10/0 Mustad 92671, making sure to put the hook point through the skin and leaving it exposed.  I've probably caught several hundred pounds of flatties with this bait alone.  If I know that I won't get a chance to catch more suckers before my next flattie trip, I may freeze some right in the tupperware container.  (My wife loves finding this in the freezer.)  This will catch fish, but obviously, fresh is better.

All of the baits above can be excellent for catfish.  My suggestion is that you try them all and always bring out a combination.  You'll start to get a feel for what works best and when.  Like me, you'll probably have one or two favorites.  It is good to get to that point because confidence in your bait is very important.  Sitting in your boat on a dark river is much more exciting if you fully believe that the fish want what your offering.  There's a big difference between thinking that maybe you'll catch a fish and knowing that it's just a matter of time.  I've developed a confidence in my bait and tactics that makes me believe that I am going to catch fish every time that I go out.  The only thing that I have to wonder about is if it's going to be a new personal record.

Go With What You Know

After all that talk about chasing muskies under the ice, I'm still skunked after 2 more trips to that lake.  During my last time out, I determined in my mind that my next fishing trip would be to one of my old faithful spots.  I secured permission from my reluctant wife to spend Saturday up at my in-laws with my two oldest kids.  I called a few friends and relatives to see if anyone wanted to join us.  I got a couple of takers.  My cousins, Jared and Jeff, came out.  Jared also brought his son.  My brother-in-law Josh stopped by for a little bit, bringing along his youngest boy.

Jared and I started by putting out tip-ups along the shore in front of my in-laws' in depths from about 6 to 12 feet.  When we finished, I looked up and saw my boy heading up the stairs to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  He didn't even last 20 minutes, and I could see that he was taking off with my beef jerky.  Grandpa was heading up with him and I knew that they'd both enjoy each other's company, so it was probably for the best.  My daughter headed up shortly after, taking our bag of licorice with her.  Oh well, I could call up to them if we got into a nice fish.

We started out by piddling around in the area where we caught our perch during the last trip.  We hooked a couple, but it didn't appear that this area was going to produce like it did for us a few weeks ago.  There were a lot of fish on the flasher, but they didn't want to do anything more than sniff the minnow.  Those little green bars of light would slide up under my bait and then quickly drop back down to the solid red bottom.  Jeff was the first one to venture into deeper water.  He found some nice bluegills in 20 feet of water.  We watched as he could barely get his wax worm to the bottom before another eager gill clamped on.  One flag popped and we got a fat little bass, maybe 15 inches.  That thing was so sluggish that it didn't even take 2 feet of line out.  I'm surprised that it didn't get hit in the head by the egg sinker when it grabbed the minnow.  Maybe it did and was just too cold to care.

Just as we were getting warmed up, Jared's boy stuck his finger with a hook and then stepped knee deep into an ice hole in the ensuing panic.  I watched as Jared tried to calm his small son and then he let him know that they could go home if he wanted to.  The boy did want to go home and Jared packed up without hesitation.  That's some great fathering.  I'm pretty sure that I would have been reaching for some "win one for the Gipper" class inspiration to keep my kids out there.  I'd pull out promises of money, delicious snacks, and later bedtimes.  Anything to keep them on the ice.  My wife would definitely say that I could learn something from Jared.

After awhile, it was just Jeff and me.  I gradually inched out towards him until we were practically within arm's length of each other.  By then, he had a nice pile of gills and one nice crappie.  They had slowed down, so we both dropped small minnows down in pursuit of the perch.  We landed several in the 7-9 inch range and one 11 inch pig.  Our panfish quest was interrupted when the furthest flag away saluted.

As I headed towards the tip-up, I noticed that the handle wasn't spinning.  I figured that it was another grab and drop or maybe just the wind blowing the flag up.  I got a little closer and off it went.  The fish was taking a long run.  Had to be a pike.  I got my fingers on the line with the fish still running and gave a quick little tug to set the hook.  I gained a little ground before it took off again.  This fish made several long runs.  As I was fighting this fish, another flag tripped just 15 yards away.  I called to Jeff and he headed over.  My fish was running right at this other tip-up, so we wondered if she had pulled the line through the second tip-up's line.  We could see the handle spinning, so something was going on.  We're still not sure what happened there.  All Jeff was able to pull in was an empty hook.  No minnow, no pike.  He came over and helped me manage my line.  There was a strong wind at my back and the line was falling all over itself.  By the time the pike's runs had shortened to brief bursts close to the hole, I had knots all over the place.

The fish finally made a pass under the hole where we could get a look at her.  We saw a huge fish with a wide back.  I told Jeff that this was a big fish and maybe even a new personal best.  I had to let her pass by a few more times as the line had gone under her belly and I wasn't able to turn her head into the hole.  Finally, I got my chance and I pulled her up and onto the ice.  She started those big slow flops that monster pike make when they find themselves on the wrong side of the ice.

They had noticed up at the house that this fight was taking longer than normal, so everyone came pouring out.  I ran back to my bucket to get my mouth spreader and pliers, and also my camera, scale, and tape measurer.  This beast did turn out to be my personal best by one inch.  It was just a touch over 40 inches and weighed 15 pounds.  We took several pictures with several cameras and phones and back into the hole she went.  I held her for a minute before her fins began to move.  Then she started gaining strength and her whole body began to slowly wave back and forth.  She finally pulled free with a strong surge and disappeared back under the ice to find a quiet weed bed to rest in.

Figuring out new water and unmastered fish is definitely part of what makes this sport so enjoyable.  When some of those experiments don't work out, at least not right away, it's really good to have those spots and fish that you know and that produce.  There's a reason they're your favorites.  I just got a 40-inch reminder with big teeth.  Point taken.

A Neat Little Trick

When I'm all set up, I love to see the end of the rods bobbing a little bit.  This means that my gill, minnow, or bullhead is down there calling in a flathead.  When I'm fishing with creek chubs and sucker minnows, my joy is often stifled by a big thump on the pole followed by perfect stillness.  Channel cats can't seem to resist coming in and giving these minnows a good pounding.  I rarely catch them.  I'll leave it out there for several minutes after the thump to see if they'll come back, but I inevitably end up pulling in a minnow that  looks like Lindsay Lohan after a night in the clubs.  With a limited amount of live bait, I go a little crazy when this happens.

One slow night I was fishing in the basin just up from the bridge when a thought popped into my head.  I had been using Berkley Gulp Alive 4" minnows on a jighead earlier in the day.  Thinking about how those channels can't resist nailing a minnow dancing around on the bottom, I wondered if I could call one in with a jig and plastic minnow.  I figured the scent that they inject into the Alive baits could only help.  I grabbed one of my 7 foot St. Croix Premier spinning rods and went to work.  I dropped the jig right down behind the boat and got to aggressively jigging the bait on the bottom.  With a combination of big hops and violent shakes, I imagine I was stirring up the bottom and sending some pretty good scent downstream.  I kept this up for about 10 minutes when an angry 8 pound channel hit the jig like it just said something about his mama.

The fight was good, especially because I picked him up just 8 feet directly below me.  When I got the grumpy old channel in the boat I tough talked him a little bit because I had outsmarted him with my little plan.  I would guess that maybe 1 in 10 of my bright ideas actually works.  When you get those though, you've got to try them because it sure feels good when they do.

Beyond the Bridge

It's been a few years since my days (nights) of sticking around the launch and hoping to run into a couple of roaming cats.  I started to get a lot more comfortable with the night time river and I knew that there were some snags and deep holes out there that had to hold some hungry flatties.

About 2 miles up river, there's a big turn called Devil's Elbow.  Just up from this turn is a long stretch of deep water along a cut bank.  Although things get changed and pushed around from year to year, this portion of the Grand consistently holds several nice snags.  There also seems to be a ton of wood scattered along the bottom.  I've found that you don't necessarily have to drop your bait right on a snag for a flattie to find it.  You can be somewhere around one or maybe in between a couple of them and shortly after dark you have a pretty good chance of crossing paths with this river's biggest predator.  I've also had good luck dropping a bait right at the base of the bank.  Picture it like a wall meeting the floor.  That groove seems to become a natural runway for them.  I do realize that fishing this section makes it much more likely that I will snag up.  I just come prepared with leaders already tied to hooks and swivels.  That lets me get back to fishing with one quick Palomar knot.  By mid summer, I have a pretty good idea where to throw my baits to stay snag free.

Just below the elbow is a long stretch of water that runs about 12 feet deep.  It doesn't have as much wood, but when most of the river in this 2 mile stretch doesn't get more than 5 feet deep, the catfish find this area pretty inviting.  I had my best hour of fishing ever on this stretch this past fall.  The other river predators like this section too.  One bank is rocky and it drops straight off.  You can drift along this bank and pick a ton of fish off with crankbaits or jigs.

Down river about a half mile from the elbow is a somewhat unlikely cat honey hole.  It's unlikely because it isn't a hole at all.  There is a pretty good snag that sits in water that generally doesn't get deeper than 5 feet.  As a matter of fact, one summer the river was particularly low and clear.  I was sitting just up from this snag in water that couldn't have been more than 3 feet deep.  I actually peeked over the side of my boat just as a 10 pound flattie swam by.  I could just see him in the glow of my stern light.  I had a quick thought that I'd probably catch him when, sure enough, he picked up my cut sucker and back to the boat I hauled him.  What's better, this snag actually produced my biggest flattie to date.  It was a 25 pounder that I caught in the early morning hours of a summer night.  My uncle Tim was out on the river in his boat that night.  I remember calling him up and telling him that I had to head in because that was all the excitement that I could handle for one night.  I should mention that I have no witness and no picture to verify this catch.  My camera was with me, but it just had enough juice to flash and not record a picture.  I tried 2 or 3 times before giving up on it.  Those are the breaks.  I'll have my camera ready to go when I get my 30 pounder.

One more place to note is a creek mouth that comes in just under some power lines.  I have heard that creek mouths are good for flatheads.  I don't fish this mouth very often, but I tried it one night when the water was running high and fast.  Most of my other spots were unfishable.  I dropped in two lines with creek chubs on both.  I made the fortunate decision to move one of my baits and this second cast must have dropped that chub right in front of a flattie's maw.  I barely put the rod down when it got that beautiful bend in it.  I stared at the rod dumb for a few seconds not believing that I already had a fish on.   I regained my compusure and pulled in a 17-pounder.  The extra current made me wonder if he was going to be a new personal best.  I finally got him surfaced and saw that the thing had its mouth wide open.  He was putting on the brakes.  I was pretty pumped because good high water spots are hard to find and I had a new one.

Michigan recently allowed anglers to fish with 3 lines.  I have put this to good use.  I have what I think is a pretty good set up.  I can use some form of this set up in just about every situation.  We have two rod holders on the back of the boat.  Picture the boat being anchored by the bow so that when I turn around in the driver seat, I am looking straight down river.  The rod on the left is right in front of me and I have to reach a little to get to the rod on the right.  I typically drop the bait on the left straight down just behind the boat.  The bait on the right gets thrown further behind the boat.  Then, depending on where I am in the river, I put a 3rd rod behind me on one side of the boat or the other.  The bait is thrown out at an angle away from the boat.  This usually puts it out in a flat that borders a deep hole or is outside of a snag.  I set the clicker on this reel since this rod is out of my site line.  I cover a lot of water with this set up and it has produced really well for me.

This small stretch of river will always be my favorite.  All stress falls away when I get in our boat and pull away from that launch.  The Grand empties into Lake Michigan and there is a large dam between our stretch and the mouth.  The fish that have access to the lake and to the bait from the lake are obviously going to have the potential to get bigger than the fish in our section.  I'm missing out on those fish because of the dam.  I'll spend plenty of time on my home stretch, but this year I'm going to explore this down river section and see if I can find the monsters.

Sophomore Blues

I couldn't get those muskies out of my mind this weekend, so I went back after them on Sunday afternoon.  The only way that I could justify going again so soon was if I brought my two oldest kids.  I should have known that I was biting off more than I could chew.  I think that I even had a nagging voice in the back of my head, but I was too focused on getting another chance.  

With minnows, gear, Gatorade, and snacks loaded on my back and in each of my hands, we headed out to my spot.  The walk in is about a quarter mile.  I tried to be patient as we slowly plodded along.  Both kids went down hard at least once and I had to keep reminding them to stay on the snow covered sections.  We eventually arrived at my little transition area drop off.  I went to work setting up my tip-ups and two jigging rods.  Besides the joy of hanging with my kids, bringing them along offers the opportunity to fish an additional 6 lines.  I only made use of one line for each of them, figuring that we probably wouldn't stay a real long time.

I have to say that overall, the kids did really well.  They both had every single pair of mittens that I packed for them wet within the first half-hour.  My son couldn't stop reeling up the line on the jigging poles even though I told him repeatedly that I had them set just where I wanted them.  He pouted and talked about wanting to go home a couple of times when I asked him to put the rod down.  They both devoured their Gatorade and M & M's as soon as we got settled.  But all in all, they stayed busy and simply had fun.  My daughter showed a lot of interest in catching fish.  She wanted to sit down and jig one of the poles, and she did a good job with it.  When interest in the fishing waned, they wandered around and practiced "ice skating" in their boots.  Best of all, they seemed to stay warm.

The trouble started when my daughter announced that she had to go to the bathroom.  No problem at first.  I grabbed some of the gear that I didn't need anymore, figuring that I could make my last trip off of the ice a little easier, and started back to the outhouse at the launch with both kids in tow.  They were pretty horrified by the outhouse, but both kids successfully made water.  Back we went.  My boy, who at this point tends to be a bit of a couch potato, got a little whiny on me as we walked back to our spot.  Wanting to keep him in the game, I put him on my shoulders for the majority of the walk.  He enjoyed this.  I was good with it until he began calling me his horsey and forbade me to speak because "horsies don't talk."

Here's the kicker.  Within about 20 minutes of getting back to our spot, my daughter announced again that she had to go to the bathroom.  I couldn't imagine making that journey all over again, and so soon.  I also couldn't believe that she could have to go again so quickly.  Horrible father that I am, I told her that there is no way that she could already have to go.  I watched her dance for about 5 more minutes when I realized that this was the real deal and I'd better get her back to the outhouse.  I told her to get a head start, I checked over our tip-ups and gear one more time, and then threw the boy back on my shoulders and headed out after her.  I was fully aware that we were heading into the most productive time of the day, but I tried to ignore this thought as I walked away from my tip-ups and rods.

I rounded the corner into the public access site just in time to see her heading into the outhouse.  The door didn't make it all the way closed before I could hear her wailing away.  At first I thought that she was just singing, as she's prone to do, but I pretty quickly realized that the poor girl was sobbing and screaming, "I didn't make it!" at the top of her lungs.  Just my luck, a couple of grizzly old ice fishermen were just getting back to their truck.  You can be sure that they weren't used to witnessing the drama that a kindergarten age girl can produce when she finds herself suddenly soaked in her own urine.  Feeling the burn of their glare on my back, I bent down to my daughter to try to comfort and quiet her.  I wasn't successful at either.  She only screamed louder.  She wailed over and over, "I just peed on myself!  I don't like it!"

Eventually, the gruff old boys moved on and I had my daughter calmed down to a whimpering mass of misery.  Still, there I was with a wet daughter, a boy who was quickly catching his sister's defeated spirit, and all of my stuff a quarter mile away on the ice.  I decided that I'd better just lock them in my Jeep and get my gear as quickly as I could.

Ever notice that hurrying makes you go slower?  I got two of my tip-ups tangled up, so I had to just throw the mess into my bucket.  My answer to the 8 pound test on my jigging poles, mentioned in an earlier entry, was to go to 20 pound Berkley Vanish.  What a mistake!  That stuff was literally jumping off of my reels in huge loops, even with the bail closed.  Of course, my worst tangle came when I was trying to hurry back to my kids.  I took out the scissors and made fast work of it.  I've since changed those reels out with 50 pound Power Pro.  We'll see how that works.  With fleeting disappointment over what a bust this trip turned out to be, I quickly made my way back to my kids.

When I finally made it to the Jeep I could see that the windows were all steamy and you could faintly hear both kids crying.  At least there wasn't a CPS worker waiting for me.  When I opened the hatch, my daughter said that she thought that I had gone out and kept fishing.  My son had just dropped his bubble gum and couldn't get to it because I had buckled him in.  I recovered the gum for the boy and he was good.  I took a little more time with my daughter.  I let her know that, first of all, I would never just keep fishing if I knew that it was causing her to be miserable.  I also apologized repeatedly and made it very clear that this whole thing was my fault and not hers.  She gave me a brief lecture on how I better listen to her from now on.  I humbly promised that I would do just that.  That was all she needed, except a bath and clean clothes.  She even asked me when we were going to come back and try it again.  I told her I didn't know, but our next trip would be to Grandma and Grandpa's where the bathroom is close.

I Wanna Do That Again

I've found that I like to sneak into those little fishing niches that seem to get overlooked by other fisherman.  I discovered one.  There's a lake not far from my house that gets stocked with muskies.  From what I can tell, practically no one even gives them a second thought when the lake is iced over.  This lake gets a moderate bit of ice fishing attention, but they're all chasing gills and crappies.  On a recent trip to this lake, I asked a few local guys about the muskies in the lake and every single one of them talked about catching or seeing them in the summer.  I asked if anyone ever went after the muskies in the winter and I generally got a shrug and a "not that I know of."  Apparently the local fishermen don't believe that they'd catch anything if they tried to pursue the muskies.  This works for me.  I'm pretty sure that I can.

I have a friend who fishes this lake in the summer and he gave me a good idea on where to start.  The lake has two main bodies that are connected by a narrow stretch.  There is a tiny island in the middle of this skinny section.  The portion of the lake to the north is basically a big weedy flat that doesn't get more than 15 feet deep.  The section to the south is a huge bowl that drops down to 50 feet.  The narrow stretch is only about 5 feet deep, but it drops off quickly just after the island.  My friend said that he catches a lot of bass in this area when they come up off of this drop off and head into the shallows to feed.  He figured that the muskies used this area in the same way.  It sounded like a plan so I worked on the wife until she gave me a half day's leave to hit the hard water.

I found the drop off just as he described it.  I set one tip-up in the shallows near the drop and another just off of the drop.  I then got my new jigging pole and picked another spot off of the drop.  I had a jigging spoon on this rod and I hooked a shiner through the lip with the treble hook.  I set this on a stand and positioned it near the bottom.  I jigged it occasionally, but I noticed that the shiner was doing a lot of moving on his own so for the most part I let him do the work.

I fished for 3 hours with no action, moving my tip-ups now and then, but leaving the pole where I originally placed it.  Lulled into a bit of a haze from the hours without action, I absent mindedly gave the spoon a shake and then dug into my backpack in search of my sunflower seeds.  When I looked back at my rod, it was bent towards the hole and making big, slow bobs.  I grabbed the rod, stand and all, and lifted it.  I felt the weight of a big fish.  I fumbled to get the rod out of the holder and dropped that out of the way.  The fish at first didn't budge, but then slowly moved out, taking drag.  I could feel it shaking its head and tried to stay with it as it swam for awhile in one direction and then reversed and took off the other way.  I eventually got the fish somewhere near the hole, close enough that it sent a huge cloud of bubbles through the hole with the swish of its tail as it went on one more run.  Then, just like that, the hook pulled out and it was gone.  I never even got a look at it. 

Exhilerated more than disappointed, I sat there for a minute with a stupid smile on my face.  I wanted another go at one of these submarines and I almost immediately started thinking about adjustments that I'd need to make to better my chances.  As I went back over the fight in my head, I realized that I hadn't really set the hook.  I was using 10 pound test and I couldn't know how deep into the mouth the spoon was.  Knowing that those sharp teeth just had to nick that line to end the battle, I think that I babied the fish too much.  I'll be beefing up my line and I'm definitely going to let her have it when I get into my next one.  Something else that I realized is that I probably would have had a lot of trouble getting that thing out of the hole if I did manage to steer it to the surface.  I don't want to use a gaff, but I'm going to start bringing a pair of mechanic's gloves to give me a little protection and confidence when I reach in after my next water wolf.  I'll be replaying that 5 minute fight over and over in my head until I can get out next.  Better start working on the wife again.

From There to Here

Catfish gear is pretty simple, but you definitely have to have the right stuff.  After a lot of reading, watching In-Fisherman DVD's, and getting out there and just figuring it out, I've landed on some pretty good gear.  We don't have the real monsters up here, so I don't go as big as the guys in the states that do. 

I learned pretty quickly that a baitcasting rig can't be beat for this application.  The reels are perfect for fighting these fish and the whole rig is much more compatible for setting your rods in a holder.  The reel that I landed on is an Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 6500 C3.  It's incredibly strong, smooth, solidly put together, and it has a clicker.  The clicker is basically an alarm that lets you know if something is pulling out line.  Another nice bonus is that it's relatively cheap at around $80.  I have 2 right now. 

For a rod, I use a 7' Medium-Heavy Ugly Stick Catfish rod.  These things only cost a little over $30 and they are just about perfect for what I do.  First of all, they're white.  I can see them as plain as day no matter how dark it is outside.  They're a really powerful rod with a soft tip.  The soft tip makes it nice for casting delicate baits and is helpful when using no stretch braided lines.  The power gives me a lot of confidence when I get into a big fish.  I haven't run into a fish yet that this rig didn't handle beautifully. 

I'm generally a monofilament guy, so I used that bright green Big Cat line by Berkley for a couple of years.  I didn't have any real complaints about it, other than it was a little bit springy.  Some of my reading led me to get curious about braided lines.  The guys on the catfish forums touted Power Pro, hands down.  I went with their 80# hi-vis yellow.  I hated it at first.  I had to go through a learning curve and I was whiffing on my hooksets.  I almost decided to switch back to mono, but I gave it some time and started connecting again.  Now I love it.  It's great for casting.  I had maybe 2 bird nests all last summer and they were pretty easy to get out.  With it's strength, I have a huge amount of confidence when fighting fish.  After a little use, the line loses the outer coating and fades a little bit.  Don't worry, this is actually a good thing.  It maintains its strength and it becomes more pliable.  I actually prefer the line to be broken in.

The In-Fisherman guys teach that a slip rig can't be beat for fishing on the bottom for flatties.  I use a 3 ounce no-roll sinker and a bead above a #3 or #5 Berkley McMahon barrel swivel.  The bead protects the knot.  I exclusively use the Palomar knot.  It's a must with braid.  Don't go cheap with your swivels.  You'll be mad when Pylodictis olavaris turns it to scrap and disappears back into the depths.  I like short leaders and I use the same braid that goes on my reel.  I spend some time in the winter tying up a stock of them so I can get back into the water quicker if I break off.  I generally keep my leader shorter than 8 inches.  It leaves plenty of room for live bait to move around enough to get noticed, while giving them less opportunity to get snagged up on some wood or under a rock.  Sometimes with cutbait, I skip the leader and let the bead and sinker slide right down to the hook.  This is another trick that the In-Fisherman boys taught me.  This lets you hug a snag with your bait while, again, making it less likely to get caught on it.  This set up doesn't seem to deter the fish in the least. 

I'm still figuring out hooks.  I do like Kahle hooks for cutbait.  This is a pretty popular hook that a lot of guys use.  I have the Mustad 37140 in several sizes ranging between 1/0 and 5/0.  Another cutbait hook that seems to work fine is the Eagle Claw #084.  I just have that in 5/0.  Good channel cat hook.  For the big baits that I use for flatties, both cut and live, I like the 10/0 Mustad 92671.  I also have that hook in 7/0 for just a little smaller bait.  I'm really starting to become a fan of Tru-Turn's T722 O'Shaughnessy catfish hook.  I bought that in 8/0 last year and it became my prefered hook.  It comes out of the package nice and sharp and maintains its point.  It's Perma Steel Finish doesn't rust.  This is a huge bonus.  I'm planning on adding a few more sizes of this hook to my arsenal this year. 

I looked all over the internet and went to a dozen stores to track this stuff down.  I finally discovered the web site Catfish Connection.  This little company, based in Pana Illinois, is fantastic.  They have absolutely everything that you need for catfishing and they get it to you in a hurry.  I've had great luck with them. 

I just remembered one nightfishing must, a headlamp.  I messed around with a few different $20 lights and they were okay.  I finally decided that this was something that was worth investing in.  I researched them a little bit and landed on a Petzl Myo XP  for about $85.  I picked it up at a local EMS store.  A good, bright headlamp can really make your time on the dark river trouble free.  This one turns night into day, at least in the area immediately surrounding me.  I keep a big pack of AA batteries in my boat so that I'm always prepared when the light starts flashing its low battery warning.

This may be my most dry entry, past or future, but it's the result of a lot of studying and experimenting on my part.  I'm hoping that I'll save somebody a lot of leg work.  The less time that you spend on the web and in the stores, the more time that you can spend in the dark knocking on a flathead's door.
catfishconnection.com

Rookie Efforts

Our oldest child, the girl, was a colicky baby.  This only helped cement my transition into a nighttime cat guy.  If she was awake, she was crying.  I couldn't really leave the wife to fish knowing that she was dealing with this misery.  I also couldn't just stop fishing.  I worked it out.  I'd stop by the bait shop on the way home from work and load up on sucker minnows and shiners.  I'd put them on an aerator when I got home and then wade into the insane life of a parent with a baby that never stops crying.

We'd finally get her to sleep sometime in the late evening hours and I'd tiptoe out to my Jeep and sneak up to my dad's to get the boat.  The drive to my parents' is about 25 minutes, but they live within 5 minutes of the launch.  I can generally be on the water within an hour of leaving my house.  Often times back then, I was launching just at dark or even after dark.  For this reason I stuck to the area of water close to the launch.  I didn't quite feel confident enough to run the river in the pitch dark and I was getting a lot of worry and warning from my family about fishing alone at night.  I actually got into a lot of fish in this initial area, so I was okay with sticking close to home.

Here's a description.  The water is quite shallow immediately off of the launch.  In the summer when the water is low, we actually have to keep the motor up and use a pole to get to a deeper channel on the other side of the river.  Immediately down river is a small island and the mouth of a smaller river.  During high water conditions, this little area just up from and against the island is a good place to fish for channel cats and other common river fish.  It's off of the main channel, so when most of the river is unfishable, this is a comparably calm spot where the water slows and pools.  There's also some decent wood that is stacked up.  Most of the year it is out of the water, but when we get a lot of rain this turns into prime channel habitat.

The island that I mentioned forms a natural bottle neck in the river, so the channel immediately across from the launch can be productive.  I've caught some nice flatheads in this channel in the early summers.  That bottle neck funnels them right to you.

Just up river is a bridge.  Below the bridge the water ranges from about 8-10 feet.  Most of the area between the bridge and the launch runs 5-7 feet.  We call this the flats.

Just up from the bridge is a pretty big hole that gets up to about 10 feet.  It holds a lot of channels and an occasional flathead.  I've caught some of my biggest fish out of here.

This area around the bridge and launch is where I spent most of my first couple of  years cattin'.  The general set up was to use two 7' spinning rods with medium sized Shimano spinning reels.  Bass gear.  I'd turn the driver seat around and lean the two rods against the back bench.  I'm pretty sure that I just used split shot and a hook.  I hadn't yet discovered the slip rig.  I was experimenting with hooks.  I used a lot of treble hooks, especially for cut bait.  My dad had bought a Mustad catfish hook kit, so I tried the various hooks in there.  I know that I liked the Kahle hook immediately.  I felt like I was sticking the fish pretty regularly with this wide gapped hook.

Most of the time, I'd put out one live minnow and then put half a cut minnow on the other rod.  I liked to start in the hole just under the bridge and then simply pick up the anchor every so often and allow the river to drop me back to a new spot.  I think that this worked out well because it put me onto the flat in the later hours when the channels and flatheads were out cruising.  I don't do this anymore, but I would spend my hours of waiting reading a novel.  I'd turn the old headlamp on and lose myself in some crime story.  I'd look up at my rods occasionally, but I pretty much depended on being able to hear them as the fish pulled them over and then I'd grab them before they went into the drink.  It's a wonder I didn't drown any of those rods. 

The cats sure gave me a good fight on that bass gear.  The channels would race all over the river, pulling drag, and sometimes coming to the surface.  The big flatheads would usually pretty much own me.  I've had them swim past the boat and head right up river.  I even had one break one of those spinning rods.  I tried to horse him in the current and my gear wasn't up to the task.  I sure wasn't sophisticated in those days, but I did learn a lot.  I would soon begin specializing my gear, figuring out bait, and venturing out to see what I could drag out of those snaggy holes.

New Year's Eve On Ice

I spent a long day on the ice yesterday.  I was joined by my nephew, my brother-in-law, and a couple of his work buddies.  My dad even made a brief cameo.  We fished on a small private lake that has huge pike, but maybe not very many of them, and a nice population of healthy crappies, perch, bluegills, and largemouth bass.

We set out about ten tip-ups and then settled in to catch some panfish.  It took no time before we were into them.  I did okay with my waxworms on teardrops.  The other guys did much better with a basic split shot, small hook, and live minnow.  They helped me re-think ice fishing.  I'm all about jigging waxies.  They got their minnow close to the bottom and let it do the work.  They didn't touch their poles until they got the big bend of a perch.  We caught around 30 perch.  Most of them were decent in the 7-10 inch range with one whopper that was a little over 12 inches.  We all let out a big "Wow!"  when it came through the ice.  We also happened across a couple of nice handsized gills.

Overall, the tip-ups were a disappointment.  They were set all over the lake for a good 8 hours.  We didn't catch a single pike.  We had about a 20 minute span when the flags started popping.  They were all bass.  Some dropped the minnow before we could get to it, but we managed to pull in a 15-incher and two 18-inchers.  All of them were big, healthy looking bass.

My 5 year old nephew had a great time and hung in there like a champ.  He stayed out for a good 6 hours and loved every minute of it.  The guys were good about calling him over and handing him a pole when they got a fish on.  He also enjoyed messing around with the fish on the ice and getting his picture taken with them.  He talked about fish dinners all day, but when it came time to clean them his heart got a little soft.  He briefly felt sorry for the fish and as he watched the knife stick into the first victim he said, "That looks like it hurts."  Before long he was asking to keep the fish tails and telling his dad which night he wanted to have his fish dinner.

Pretty good day on the hard water.  Enough so that when I got home I told my wife that I wish I was going again today.  No dice.  She's at school working on grades and lesson plans and I'm on kid duty.  I have my gear neatly set around the basement to thaw and dry out for the next trip.  We're thinking of hitting another bigger private lake that has a better population of pike.  The panfish are fine, but a great day on the ice is only qualified by a lot of flags and some nice Northerns.  Looking forward to giving it another go.