Tri-State Outdoor News

Early spring is a time when the outdoors comes to life and most anglers begin to prepare crappie poles and sharpen jigs for some deep brush jigging or spider rigging. There’s no doubt early spring is a great time for some cruising crappies, but it can be just as good for channel cats as old man winter loses ground.

It wasn’t long after moving to Indiana that I found the lakes around here to be full of catfish. I was amazed at the size of channel cats and quickly began targeting them often – and a great time to pursue these big channel cats is in the spring.

The important thing with early spring cat fishing is water temperature. Finding the warmer water on any lake will be the focus during early spring and just a few degrees can make the difference. Water 1 to 5 feet deep, with a mud bottom, is a great place to look as the sun is drawn to the dark, mud- bottom causing the water to warm quicker in these areas. The warmer water stimulates the cold-blooded cats causing them to feed more aggressively and what brings these fish to these shallow coves is food!

In the winter there is a natural die off of fish that occurs and if your lake has shad, then the amount of food floating below the surface of the lake can be extraordinary. This die off provides catfish with a much needed food source before time to spawn. Instinct will prevail and the catfish will find these wind swept coves with lots of dead shad from the winter-kill taking advantage of this natural occurrence.

Wind to an angler can be a nuisance or a great ally. In the case of early spring cat fishing, wind is your ally. Wind mixes the water helping to warm these shallow coves while at the same time pushing dead shad into these coves. The important thing is to find the combination of a large shallow cove and a wind that blows directly into that cove. If the wind is not blowing directly into the cove then at least locate the bank being lapped with the wind blown water and start there.

The choice of bait seems obvious. Cut shad is the way to go for this time of year but try mixing it up a little. Most of the fish will focus on dead shad so you definitely want a rig with cut shad but you should rig a pole or two with something different just in case it stimulates a fish that might be attracted to something new. I have to say that sometimes the different bait far outperforms the shad but always have cut shad in the boat, as it will work best most of the time. Some other baits I use are shrimp, and where legal, fresh bluegill fillets and heads.

Some will argue that the smellier the bait the better. I can only say that fresh bait has always worked well for me and seems to attract the larger fish. I keep the stinky stuff out of my boat and stick to fresh or fresh frozen. I have caught fish on the rotten stuff but I seemed to waste a lot of time with smaller fish. Since going strictly fresh, the bite action has slowed but the hook-up action on bigger fish has increased as I waste little time worrying with those little fish and more time fighting nice size channels to the boat, which brings us to the tackle you want to use to catch these catfish.

You want to start with a medium heavy rod as big channel cats can put up a great fight.  I set all my rigs to free spool just in case I miss a bite he can keep running until I can get to the rod. If I see the bite I set the hook immediately.  A lot of anglers like to tight line their rigs but it seems as though this results in dropped bites when they feel the rod, leaving no time to set the hook.

One stick is all it takes. A common mistake that I used to make was to stick the bait numerous times and cover the entire hook with the bait for fear the fish might feel the hook and spook. I now leave the hook point uncovered and stick the bait only once so that when the fish inhales the bait the point is exposed, and even if it decides to spit it out, there is a better chance for a hook up. This may seem trivial but really does make a difference in the number of hook-ups you will have.

Terminal tackle should consist of a solid hook and a monofilament leader, 20 to 30 pound test, with a barrel swivel between it and the main line. On the main line, above the swivel, there should be a single bead to protect the knot, and then a slider for your sinker; these sliders are inexpensive and are much less abrasive on your line and allows you to easily change sinker size as conditions dictate. The sinkers ability to slide on the main line is very important as these fish are very sensitive to pressure and if they feel any at all, they will drop the bait. The reason I choose mono for my leader is its ability to withstand the abrasion effects of heavy brush a little better than braided line. My main line is 50 to 60 pound braid, which allows more line on a more compact reel, which I like to use.  I set the hook hard on these big cats so I choose the octopus over the circle as my choice in hooks. Quick hook sets are important to get those big cats away from the cover that they are sure to head for when hooked. This is the reason I use a compact rod and reel, to have more control of the fight.

Spring cat fishing may not be as popular as some of the other early spring fishing but with a little patience you might find an exciting early spring activity for yourself and your family and enjoy some great fishing fun as well as some great fillets for the table.

It’s HOT, and with the increase in temperatures (especially in the southern reaches of the Tri-State Outdoor News,) it can make it hard to want to get out there and fish. Also, many species of fish have changed their patterns and can be more difficult to catch now than they were a month or two ago when they were up on the beds spawning.

Even though they can be a little tougher, fish can still be caught during the dog days of summer – sometimes in impressive numbers. You may just need to tweak your presentations and locations you fish in order to get on them. More »

Lazy days spent fishing a farm pond are some of the best times afield. Many old timers got their start this way, while today’s kids often follow suit and catch their first fish from a pond. Stock your tackle box with a few wellworn favorites and you can also catch farm pond fish this summer.

“I always try to keep a good supply of some type of plastic worms,” said Andy Mowrey, an avid farm pond angler and stream restoration biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “I also like the good oldfashioned topwaters like Hula Poppers and Jitterbugs. Also, I keep some kind of jig-and-pig or crankbait; something that moves faster than a plastic lure.” More »

Early summer is a confusing time to fish for largemouth bass. Common sense dictates bass would inhale anything resembling food after the rigors of spawning in late May and early June. It seems a Carolina-rigged lizard or spinner bait tossed into places where the fishing was good earlier in the year would be crunched by a hungry, ornery largemouth at this time of year.

However, many anglers may fish long hours just to catch a few 12-inch bass to show for it.

“I have trouble with postspawn fishing because it’s transitional,” said Jeff Ross, assistant director of fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “The spawn takes a lot out of them. Shallow water fishing declines after the spawn. You may still catch little ones, but the big females are transitioning to their summer habitat.” More »

The first time I watched Chad Miles fish, he caught a 23-inch largemouth bass within the first 10 minutes. Tossing a straight-tailed, 6-inch plastic worm beside a submerged flat rock, he took his hand off the handle of his spinning reel as his lure fluttered to the bottom of Nolin River Lake.

He gently shook the rod tip a few times, and then slowly lowered the tip. The rod cracked upward and bowed as he stuck that big hog. He told me the Shakey style was dynamite on Nolin River Lake. He wasn’t lying. More »

This is the time of year that Tri-State panfish anglers wait for all year. The weather has warmed and the bluegills are staking out their spawning territory in the shallows. Clusters of tightlypacked beds seem to spring up overnight, and suddenly spawning bluegills are everywhere. This is the perfect time to take that youngster fishing with you!

The aggressive and territorial bluegills (and redear sunfish) are quick to pounce on almost any bait that invades their space, so the fishing can be quite exciting. It often doesn’t matter whether you use live bait or small artificials, either. Just get a bait into the strike zone, and then get ready for action. More »

For most of us when we think of a guide, a vision pops into our mind of a rugged man on a horse leading a group of “dudes” through a beautiful mountain pass in Colorado. In actuality guides come in all shapes, sizes, age and sexes, and lead people on hunting and fishing excursions in every state in the nation. Some guides work in surprisingly congested areas on the fringes of some of the largest cities in the country. The term guide carries a certain mystique about it. When you meet a person claiming to be a guide you assume he or she has certain qualifications in order to lay claim to such a glorious title.

In some states that would be true. In the majority of states where hunting and fishing are major industries, the state requires a potential guide to purchase a guide’s license. However, before an individual can purchase the license he or she must possess certain basic skills. These skills are usually first aid and survival skills and have nothing to do with his or her hunting or fishing expertise.

Over the years I’ve hired numerous fishing guides. Most were hired to take me saltwater fly fishing to some desolate location in the Caribbean. One guide was good, some of them were below average and most were terrible. More »

I know its winter, but good open water angling opportunities exist for cold water spawning species of fish like walleyes during the winter months. And, while most of the readers of Tri-State Outdoor News likely don’t have many ice fishing opportunities, they can still get a jump start on their fishing season.

The key to catching walleyes during the winter is to find them, and the best places to find them are in the rivers and spillways below the dams of any reservoirs with fishable walleye populations. For Tri-State Outdoor News reader, that means heading to places such as Lake Monroe, Harden Reservoir, Cagles Mill and Williams Dam in Indiana or Olney Lake in Illinois.

Walleyes migrate below spillways for a variety of reasons: For one, they spawn in water temperatures between forty and fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit, so the movement is simply preparation for the upcoming spawning season. Water below spillways also offers highly oxygenated water with consistent water flows and temperatures, and lastly the areas offer the fish a place to rest and feed before the spawning cycle begins. More »