Catfishing (real fishing) (all postings)

Caught a 20+ inch catfish and saw a bunch more (including one that i ran into paddling through muck in my kayak) on the west end of Yellowstone Lake. It's really shallow over there so you can't use a deep bottom boat but pretty much guaranteed to catch a catfish.

Hildy Boys-

Try the stretch of river below the Beloit dam. soak some small live bluegills off the bottom. also try secret 7 dip bait with red dip bait tubes. good spot to fish from shore. let me know how you do if you go....... good luck!

I am really trying to get my boys a catfish, they want to catch one so bad but every attempt so far has failed. We have no problem catching sheepshead, but have yet to get a catfish.

I am mainly a bass/muskie fisherman, so this whole sit and wait fishing thing is a new concept for me. Any suggestions in techniques, or locations in Southeast Wisconsin would be appreciated. I have a boat, but would prefer to fish from shore if its a river because I am not expecerienced at all with river fishing. That is my next learning experience!

Thanks Guys!

Fished south of Stevens Point on Wisconsin River 3 days this past week. Got 7, 8, & 6 cats respectively. Size range: 18"-24" Fished stink baits for the first time... SOLD on stinkers! :-)

Kept a few for the deep fryer... others are still swimmin'! :-)

Great fightin' fish!!!

Tight Lines!

RT

fished the lower wisconsin last night and got 9 in a few hours they all hit the same rod even though there were 5 others with the same bait all on stink bait

Went to the wi. river from 4 till 6.30 got off just before the rain. Got 23 cats on stink bait sonnys was the best today. only tried one place that was by a log jam just off the current.Had fried cats for supper rest are going in the smoke house.

lookin to get my old lady hooked on catfishin i already got her hooked on walleyes (perch on steriods is what she calls them) and other game fish but i really want to get her on a huge flatty and a CPR pic to last a life time i got access to all kinds of bait just need a spot from shore.im me as not to form crowd.ur secret is sefe with us ps line in milwuakee willin to travel for oppertunity

I took a co-worker out on the wisconsin River last night so I could get he and his son hooked on cattin'. Mission accomplished! ". We fished for about three hours, nothing big for folks over four feet tall, but every fish his boy got was a "monster". Hid dad was having just as much fun watching his boy crankin' in his "huge " fish. Great afternoon cattin'.

Took a Friend out in my boat for cats this past Sunday afternoon on the Wisc. River near Nekoosa. We fished for 2.5 hours and landed 23 channel cats and lost a few more at the boat side. No real lunkers, all just average sized channels. Most fish were caught in about 10ft of water, but some came from 6ft of water on a drop-off near a logjam. All fish caught on night crawlers.

Hooked a large fish that decided it didn't like me. It turned and proceeded to take drag for about 25yds were it was able to loose me in the logjam. Didn't fight like a big carp, thinking it was probably a sturgeon or a very large cat as I couldn't turn or slow it at. It just took line at a steady but not fast pace with some occasional head shakes.

Couple more caught in last 2 weeks.

Usually I fish bass most of the summer but this year I have been doing some cat trips. 7 trips so far and getting anywhere from 1-10 flatheads a trip.

fished in depere last night going 8 for 11, 4 flatheads and 4 channels... all fish caught off of the 172 bridge using worms, didnt have any cutbait along. fish were between 5-10lbs... nothing huge but better than nothing

GunnerM

There are a lot of places to shore fish around LaCrosse. You could start with the lock and dam on the Minnesota side, there are a lot of places along the wall and down to the lower landing. We used to catch them above the dam behind the wall as well.

Also try Pettibone Park there are some wing dams along there. oh and don't overlook the Onalaska spillway ( both east and west). Hope that gets you started.

The yellow "meat" near the top is a strip of fat. you should never eat any fat from a catfish as that is the highest percentage of retained toxins from the water they live in. Many state game agencies now have a pamphlet on this topic. Always trim the yellow fat from all fish species to greatly reduce your consumption of water borne toxins.

The yellow meat on the upper portion of channel cat fillets is not fat, but are accumulations of compounds called xanthophylls. These are the same compounds that cause Yukon gold potatoes to be yellow. Farm-raised channel cats that are fed feed with a high proportion of corn often develop this condition and it is considered undesirable.

Wild channel catfish prey heavily upon insects, and as fry they consume large amounts of phytoplankton. Both insects and phytoplankton accumulate large quantities of xanthophylls which are common in many plants, and are hence accumulated in channel cats. Xanthophylls are poorly metabolised in catfish and they accumulate in hydrophobic (i.e. fatty) portions of the muscle, which are more prevalent on the dorsal side of most fish. They also have an affinity for less dense muscle fiber. Blues have denser muscle and consume less insects and plant matter (primarily shad feeders) than channels and this is why you seldom see this condition in blues; although, I have seen it occasionally on small blues and blue X channel hybrids. Oddly the yellow-meat condition is often less in channels caught from fast-moving water.

These xanthophyllic compounds are not toxic and actually provide health benefits to the consumer; however, since they accumulate in the fatty portions where poly-chloro-biphenyls (PCB's--potential mutagens) toxins also accumulate, they should probably be trimmed off. I don't much care for channels and have eaten this yellow meat on occasions in my younger days. Sometimes it had an "off" flavor and sometimes it didn't. But now if I dress channel cats, I always trim it off.

Update on the yellow catfish meat; it tasted great and lost the color during cooking.