whos ready to catch some monsters
I’m always ready to catch a few Cats for the table. But only manage to catch them by accident, You know something that I don’t??
My wife and I enjoy catfish as table fare. We look
forward to the spring spawn when the big boys and
girls come shallow and eat almost anything.G Fine
eating for sure. Warm regards, Jim
The only advice I have for successful catfishing is to find a pond or lake where the catfish population seems to be genetically programed to take a fly. There are two lakes that I fish where I consistently catch more catfish than bass on Clousers and Buggers. I try the same exact patterns in all the other waters where I know a healthy population of catfish exist and never catch catfish. Not sure why.
poke, Thats kind of what I have found, Buggers and Minnow type flies, Ive even caoght them on Nymphs intended for Bluegills but haven’t found a “Go To” for Cats. :?
Using the Infamous Pink Worm (except it was red), I caught a channel cat on almost every cast all one afternoon at a pond a year or two ago. I thought I had the secret. I haven’t even had a bite from a channel cat that I know of on it since. Strange…
Joe
i usually catch all of mine on a chartreuse and white streamer
chip
I usually catch catfish when I just let a black wooly bugger sit on the bottom. . . often when I’ve got part of the line tangled on my shoelaces and I haven’t started retreiving the fly yet. I doubt it’s even neccesary to retrieve the fly, if that’s not too boring for you. 
Bill Bill, you’ve got to give catfish more credit than that!! I’ll assume you were kidding. I’ve caught channel catfish on bass poppers as big as 4 lbs., on fast moving spinner/woolly worm combos, on nymphs, on clousers as fast as I could strip and even an 11 pounder on a bugger the instant it hit the water. I even had one jump one time! These are truly game fish and should be respected as such! Letting the fly sink to the bottom and waiting for a pick-up is a formula for a long, boring and unproductive day.
I wasn’t kidding! I’m not trying to besmirch catfish I always catch catfish on the local ponds that way, especially when I’m not trying for them! I never catch them on poppers (or anything else for that matter), clousers or anything moving fast, perhaps those catfish know that I’m unprepared when I’m trying to untangles line from my shoelaces and they’re just trying to cause trouble! :twisted:
Great! Then I guess I just learned still another technique to use when all others have failed for Mr. Wiskers! I’ll give it a try next time.
Following Pics posted for JGW. These kitties as
well as others were caught on flies. John is
currently buried in snow wishin he was fishin.G
There was a third whopper but I couldn’t get it to
post. Warm regards, Jim
Poke’s got it—Buggers. I never fish for them but always welcome them. I don’t have a pattern for them other than to say it’s easiest to catch them in the Spring. Like Poke, I’ve caught them up to 10 lbs on poppers. I wish I had a pattern for them but “Spring Time” is all I can tell you and Oh, yeah, Buggers.
Robert
white wooly bugger. floating line. 2 bb-shot 3 feet up tippet from fly. let it hit the bottom, then bounce it and bounce it. only works in shallower waters, but usually produces cats for me. I think the bb-shot stir up the mud some, which spooks up real food and attracts the fish’s attention. maybe not. The difference between cats and no cats has always been the bb-shot for me, heh.
I’ll open a can of worms here. My go-to catfish fly is a #8 BreamKiller with a drop of crawfish scent. I’ve caught channels up to 16# on it, on a 5 wt. Great fun.
My god folks did you see[hear] that … :shock: :shock: :shock: he used a :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
Cats, especially Channels, Blues and Whites are opportunistic feeders. Flatheads/Yellows are too but in a category of their own and I’ll explain in a minute. The first group love live forage and feed on everything from crayfish to worms and especially minnows. Hence Muddlers, Crayfish patterns and the ever loving Wooley Bugger does the trick nicely. The key is finding them feeding and IDing the forage.
For instance I was fishing a northwest Missouri impoundment early spring and the Walleyes were spawning in the rip rap of the dam. Fishing for these with a Yellow Maribou Muddler, I caught several nice Channels along with a couple huge Crappie which were likely drawn to the minnows and crayfish that were trying to snipe walleye eggs. or to the eggs themselves. Another time and situation found minnows drawn to a fish feeder in an urban pond and the big Cats drawn to both the minnows and the fish food. Had dozens on that day. Lastly below dams - minnows get munched and injured in the turbines and it’s catfish city. Again a big Muddler will often do the trick. I have a couple tied with a streak of red in them to simulate blood.
Flatheads are different as they use their sensory organs to double check the liveliness of the prey and seldom hit something that doesn’t vibrate. Plus they are low light specialists. Add a bead tube to your flies or any of the rattle bead devices and work close to the snags. I’ve caught a few but very few. Look at the IGFA fly rod records if you want to see how hard they are to catch on the fly–a worthy challenge.
I was on a another post for a fly swap with the Mara Blonde Patterns. It’s sort of a hobby of mine. Just for beans, this afternoon, I tried my Mara Blonde color pattern for catfish, and to be fair, I did not go to the tail races, but in the lake proper. And I used the same one pictured that has already caught more than 20 fish.
All I did was spray it with Shad Smelly Jelly and twitch it slowly along the bottom in <10’ of water, along the rip raps. This is what happened in 10 minutes.
It took me about 4 minutes to get him in, at which time I had a small crowd of spectators. I had an Army Corps of Engineers Officer, take this picture with my camera (he knows how to use it much better than I). He wants to submit it for a State Line Class Record. I don’t think fly lines qualify for this, but I guess we’ll see. In 2 hours of fishing, I caught 7 more catfish and 3 stripers. All were smaller than this one. And the fly is still fishable!
Anyway, I believe I’ve stumbled on another ‘can’t fail’ pattern!
Semper Fi!
nice catfish. I enjoy catfishing with heavy rod and reel on a large cooling lake kind of near my home. Got some monster flathead and blues, but the rest are dinks. Theres literally thousands upon thousands of them . I just throw in a worm, cut shad or wooly bugger tipped with tiny baby shad and I seem to get a bite. Hmm, makes me want to test out my 4 wt on the dinkers. They fight fairly hard, more of a strong fighter than a quick fighter, and since they average about 8-11 inches, they should be quite fun on the 4wt more than on my old 6 weight.
A warmwater fly fishin’ sage once told me that channel cats have the best eyesight and feed similar to other fish. Bullheads rely on smell and feel (whiskers). So…
…don’t be ashamed to sauce up them flies for bullheads, fellers! 8) 