[Opry99er]

Went to a local lake today, desperately seeking catfish. Had 6 rods out, some with big floats and cutbait, some on the bottom with livers, some with crawlers. Spread out over a large area of shoreline, fishing shallow, deep, and in between.

4 cat rods, two pitch and flip rods for gill fishing.

The two rods on bottom:

Stick bobber rod with worm got this little tiny guy:

Fished this area for an hour, shallow to deep, around trees and out on the flat.

No luck. Then we headed for the dam.

We fished here for an hour, had the rods spread out like a fan, again, shallow and deep with three different kinds of bait.

No luck there, so we headed to a small cove near the dam... This looked PRIME!

Anyway, 4 hours fishing, every method and depth I could think of... No bites on any rod except the stick float rod, 6 small gills to show for it. They have been dismembered and will be used for catfish bait next time we head out to fish for cats... probably tomorrow or the next day.

No cats, but a fun day on the lake with the boy... it's a real treat to spend time with the kiddo. =)

 

[Opry99er]

Entry #2: Cane Creek Park Lake


Took the boy fishing today at Cane Creek Park. A "suuuuure-fire humdinger of a catfish pond" as the locals say.

Got to the lake about 9:00 AM and set up on the south side, moving constantly after 20 minutes of no bites. Plenty of bluegill, shellcracker, and green sunfish to be had on weightless crawler, though. We were cutting bait as we caught it.

Fished about a mile of the south shore, probably 10 spots in all. Highlight of the day was a 10" shellcracker the boy caught. I caught a hybrid about 8 inches.

Had one hard hit on a live green sunfish and then it was gone. Don't know if it was a bass or catfish, but the bass in there get to very large size...


Enjoy the pix.

 

[Opry99er]

Thanks for the tips hobie. We started using cut bait we had saved from last trip... Then, as we caught gills and sunnies, we were cutting the ones from 5-7 inches, fishing whole live fish under 5 inches, and releasing the bigger ones.

Nice lake, but highly pressured and very little shade. Since it's closed at night, we can only fish it in the mornings, since I work evenings.

Don't think we will be going back there... Not this summer anyway.

 

[Opry99er]

Did that the first few trips out. Just got hot and sweaty.

If you put a fresh piece of bloody cutbait in the water and don't get bit within 30 minutes, you should change out your cut bait for fresh and move. The cats aren't in that spot.

At least its a proactive approach. I'm growing weary of sitting for hours and getting nothing.

When I get skunked after sitting for hours, I start to feel like a lazy ass who didn't want to move to find the cats.

 

[Opry99er]

F*** that... the nearest shad is 45 minutes away and I don't have a boat.

If I'm going to drive that far, I might as well just go to the Tennessee River and catch river and reservoir cats from the bank.

I'm trying to catch small water cats because I refuse to believe there aren't any in these waters. It would be so completely ridiculous to have these perfect impoundments with structure and habitat (and a food source) and have no cats. I just haven't figured these lakes out yet.

More float fishing, more shallow fishing, day, night, cut bait and live bait and location location location. I'll find em...

 

[Opry99er]

Thanks Max. Yea, we have caught fish every time we go out, but just not our primary targets... Cats.

But I'll take a big shell cracker rather than a skunk. :thumb: