Catfish

Stonedfish · Apr 12, 2022

I was watching a show this weekend on the Sportsmen's Channel regarding fishing for blue catfish.
The fishery had a interesting twist to it. I believe it was filmed in Texas.
They were fishing floats around submerged trees with chicken gizzards where Cormorants would roost at night after eating shad.
It is an early morning fishery where the cats are attracted to the Cormorant's shad scented poop. They called it fishing the splat.
That was a new fishing technique to me and they caught some nice looking cats. I'm not sure how they'd taste though.

We have a lot of Cormorants around here. I wonder if the splat bite ever takes place around here either in fresh or saltwater?
SF

mcswny · Apr 12, 2022

Wonder what a splat fly would look like

?

Stonedfish · Apr 12, 2022

mcswny said:
Wonder what a splat fly would look like ?

Likely a stocker rainbow or salmon / steelhead smolt turd with fins.
SF

Triploidjunkie · Apr 12, 2022

Flesh fly, or maybe a balance minnow?

Tom Butler · Apr 12, 2022

That might be fun, like dry fly action, but a skipjack herring streamer imitation would be the way to go I think.
https://www.wapt.com/article/brandon-man-reels-in-record-breaking-blue-catfish/39703018

clarkman · Apr 14, 2022

I'd love to figure out how to get after channel cats on flies...My understanding is that they are quite predatory so it should be doable. There is also a population of white catfish near me that are close relatives of channels but again, I have no clue how to start getting after them. The OR state record is 15lbs....I would think that even a little 3-5lber would be fun as hell fishing smallie gear.

SilverFly · Apr 14, 2022

clarkman said:
I'd love to figure out how to get after channel cats on flies...My understanding is that they are quite predatory so it should be doable. There is also a population of white catfish near me that are close relatives of channels but again, I have no clue how to start getting after them. The OR state record is 15lbs....I would think that even a little 3-5lber would be fun as hell fishing smallie gear.

I'd be interested to know where you want to try this. Not necessarily a specific spot, but river vs lake, depth, bottom type, etc...

I had very similar thoughts 20-ish years ago when I spent several weeks in Arizona for training. A couple weekends a buddy and I drove to Lake Roosevelt which is a large reservoir on the Salt River. After some experimenting, I found a very effective method casting a live crawdad on a spin rod with no weight, waiting for it to sink, then reeling it in just fast enough to stay out of the rocks. This worked really well for bass, but we were mostly catching a lot of very healthy channel cats in the 2-10lb range. Not fun to fillet, but the ones we kept and grilled at the park over mesquite coals were delicious. Cool fish.

I know, spin rod and bait, but I remember thinking how similar this was to fishing a full sink line - and wishing I had one. If I were to go back there I'd fish a 7wt, type III full sink with a lightly weighted crawfish pattern. Would be interesting to see how the bass to catfish ratio would change with bait versus a fly that looked/moved the same.

Stonedfish · Apr 14, 2022

There were a couple pretty good threads on the other board regarding catfish.
I remember one member catching cats on a white streamer.
Never caught any on flies myself, but I agree with others it would be fun to try and knock another species off the list.
SF

clarkman · Apr 14, 2022

Stonedfish said:
There were a couple pretty good threads on the other board regarding catfish.
I remember one member catching cats on a white streamer.
Never caught any on flies myself, but I agree with others it would be fun to try and knock another species off the list.
SF

That's what I had been throwing for white cats on a smallie river. Also partially why I love white streamers for smallies....

Smith · Apr 15, 2022

Cormorant waste is liquid or mostly liquid. And foul. Don’t ask how I know.

Bakerite · Apr 17, 2022

Channel Cats are a fairly common bycatch on Brownlee and the other Snake Impoundments. Buggers seem to work pretty well. Have yet to catch one when fishing topwater. I've heard of some places they gang up in shallow water, but have yet to find a big concentration of them.

DerekWhipple · Apr 17, 2022

First and only cat I caught on the fly was on an unweighted hares ear fished in the film during a mayfly hatch in a midwest neighborhood pond. First time I saw my backing, too.

Tim L · Sep 1, 2022

clarkman said:
I'd love to figure out how to get after channel cats on flies...My understanding is that they are quite predatory so it should be doable. There is also a population of white catfish near me that are close relatives of channels but again, I have no clue how to start getting after them. The OR state record is 15lbs....I would think that even a little 3-5lber would be fun as hell fishing smallie gear.

I know I'm a little late to the party here...just now ran across. We have quite a lot of them in Ohio. I'm hitting them pretty regularly w/ standard trout setup - 5wt, full sink line and either leeches or minnows...but they'll take anything if you cross paths. All mine have been in less than 15 ft of water and you don't have to be right on the bottom, but definitely toward it. Interestingly, no one fly fishes lakes out here so just me on all the catfish.

This was from a couple of weeks ago, a bit much on a 5wt but lots of fun and plenty of fight..

Bummer, I have good video footage but the site is incapable of posting.

Matt B · Sep 1, 2022

Tim Lockhart said:
I know I'm a little late to the party here...just now ran across. We have quite a lot of them in Ohio. I'm hitting them pretty regularly w/ standard trout setup - 5wt, full sink line and either leeches or minnows...but they'll take anything if you cross paths. All mine have been in less than 15 ft of water and you don't have to be right on the bottom, but definitely toward it. Interestingly, no one fly fishes lakes out here so just me on all the catfish.

Nice one! Of course catfish don’t only live in lakes. They live in rivers too, in fact sometimes the same waters as trout and bass (where I’ve caught most of my fly caught cats).