Off To A Good Start

I’ve never been on the river this early in the year before, but we had the boat ready a couple of weekends ago and God blessed us with a 3 day stretch of warm, sunny weather this week.  Eighty degrees on April 1 is unheard of around here.  I decided to take advantage of it and see what was happening on the Grand.

I was in the boat by about 6:30 in the morning.  The river’s up a little bit, so I thought I’d start out just off of the launch and around the island where the current slows up a bit.  I figured once the sun was up, the fish might gravitate towards this shallow low current spot.  It would be a little warmer for them.  I threw out a crawler and some dip bait while I waited for daylight.  I didn’t stay in my first spot for too long because I parked in the middle of a cloud of those evil no-see-em bugs.  I tried to hang in there while they constantly bounced off of my eye balls, but I just about went mad and finally had to move.  When I reeled in to reposition the boat, I found weight on the rod with the crawler.  Most of the suckers in the Grand are redhorse or white suckers, but there’s also this disgusting, blotchy, warty, brown sucker that looks like it emerged right up out of the mud.  My first river fish of 2010 was one of those guys.  I didn’t want to touch it, so I kept it in the water and used the pliers to pull the hook out.  It gave me the heebie-jeebies, but it was a fish.  I followed it up with a few redhorse right at sun up.  If the suckers were on, the channel cats must be.  I was in for an excellent day.  After cutting the suckers into bait and putting them on ice, I headed up river to see if there were any new snags.

I didn’t find too many.  The stretch of wood that hugs the bank across from the gun club looked about the same.  Other than that, there were no good blow downs until I got up to the Elbow.  There are two really nice snags in deep water up there.   There’s also still a lot of wood scattered all up and down that cut bank, including the landmarks that I used last year to find some of my best holes.  It really made me wish that the flatties were going.

Before long, I also found myself wishing that the channels were going.  I fished dip bait, cut sucker, cut creek chub, and crawlers.  I fished deep snags, shallow snags, heads of holes, shallow flats, and current breaks.  Nothing.  Halfway through the day I got one good yank on the dip bait at the snag under the power lines, but I missed it.  A turtle immediately popped up above the dip worm, so I’m pretty sure that it was him down there.  I gave him a verbal lashing for screwing with me.

Mort called to check in on my progress from time to time and I had to keep telling him that I hadn’t found any active cats yet.  He asked me why I thought they weren’t biting.  The only thing I could land on was the water temperature.  The air might have been 80-degrees, but I was reminded that it was only April 1 every time I stuck my hand in that frigid water.  I got to wondering exactly what the water temperature was.  I remembered that Mort had bought a fisherman’s temperature sensor the year before and we had never used it.  I called him up to see if he knew where it was and hinted not so subtly that I was curious to find out what the temperature is right now.  My dad has always been the giving kind and he graciously brought it to me.  We talked for a little while at the dock and then I headed back up river to the wood across from the gun club.  I anchored next to it and threw my bait on the outer edge.  I wanted to mess with the temperature sensor, so I didn’t take the time to put fresh bait on.  I tossed out the cut chub that was on there the whole time I was talking with my dad.  It was looking pretty dry, but maybe it would re-hydrate at the bottom of the river.  I just started fidgeting with the sensor when that rod started dancing.  I set the hook and wrestled a 6-pound channel to the boat.  This fish really had some shoulders.  Great way to get my catfish season started.  I spent most of the rest of the early evening hours in this general area.  I didn’t run into any more fish, but I sure enjoyed the warm breeze and the serenity that a day on the river brings me.

With maybe a couple of hours of daylight left, I headed down to the bridge to fish off of the pylons.  I don’t love fishing around the bridge because people tend to yell at you from their cars.  I used to answer them, figuring that they wanted to know how the fishing was.  It didn’t take long to realize that they were making fun of me.  I get cursed at, called racial slurs, you name it.  Mort and I call them “the hecklers.”  I’ve learned to just wear my headphones when I’m around the bridge these days.  Whether my iPod is on or not, if someone is trying to get my attention I can just point at the headphones in my ears and shake my head.  Anyway, last night I tucked in close enough to the bridge that people couldn’t see me from up above.  I cranked the iPod just in case.  Sitting there waiting for a bite, I remembered the temperature sensor.  I tied a couple of bell sinkers to it so that it would sink.  As soon as I saw what I had done, I nicknamed this little device “Twig and Berries.”  I’ll let you figure out why.

Here’s the goofy thing about this picture.  I took about 100 shots of this thing to get just the right angle and completely forgot that I was fishing for a little while.  My headphones weren’t helping matters.  When I finally looked up, the rod on the right made a couple of hops.  I grabbed it and set the hook, but completely whiffed.  I couldn’t even feel the weight of my line and sinker.  I was totally confused.  A closer look showed me that the line was under the boat.  This sometimes happens when you come off anchor.  You end up drifting right over the top of your bait.  A look around told me that this hadn’t happened.  I reeled up and eventually realized that a fish had picked up the cut sucker and swam up river.  I got a medium sized pike to the surface just before it shook its head and dove back to the depths.  A bonus fish. I’d take it.

With only one channel in the boat after 14 hours of fishing, I had all but written them off.  I was enjoying myself anyway, so I decided to stay until after dark and fish the hole and flats down river from the bridge.  I set anchor over 10 feet of water a stone’s throw down from the bridge and dropped my baits.  With my headphones still blaring, I went to the front of the boat to dig my headlamp out of my backpack.  When I turned back towards the back of the boat, that rod on the right was bouncing like Hayden after she drinks one of those mochas from McDonald’s.  I set the hook and quickly pulled up a smaller channel.  Maybe there would be a night bite after all.  And maybe I should keep getting distracted.  It seemed to improve the fishing.

There was a night bite.  I had steady action.  I hauled in a 5-pounder and almost had a double when the second rod folded hard a couple of times as I was fighting the first fish.  I missed on the hookset.  After awhile, the bites turned into one hit wonders.  All three rods were getting tapped, but never more than one little bump at a time and nothing was grabbing on.  I finally decided to pack it in and head home for one of those short, fitful nights of sleep that always follow a night on the river.

Here’s what I learned on my first day out:  Channel cats will bite in 50-degree water, but you’ve got to work hard for them.  You absolutely can see no-see-ems.  Pike like a little cut sucker now and then.  If you fish across the river from a gun club, you can expect your serenity to be shattered by the thunderous report of a high powered rifle.  Diving into the bottom of the boat is perfectly acceptable.  Tying two sinkers to a temperature sensor looks hilarious.  That steak house on Northland Drive smells awesome after you’ve been in a boat all day.  Setting the hook with your finger resting on the braided line with a light drag can give you a pretty good cut.  If I like it, then I better put a ring on it (courtesy of one of Michelle’s workout songs sneaking onto my iPod).  Facing west all day will give you sunburn on the left side of your face while leaving the right side pasty white.  You, in fact, can write a blog entry on April 1 without making some lame April Fool's joke.  A .5 fish per hour average can still feel like a good day.  And most importantly, I realized that nothing (fishing-wise . . . settle down) can come close to my love for catfishing on the river.

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.