Stringer Full of Channels

[Matthew Cook]

we just got back from pleasant last weekend. had a blast fishing for cats and white bass. we caught a ton of channels, and they were all pretty good size. we caught like 8 cats, and all of them were in the 3-5 pound range. we were catching them on our light bass rods, so the big ones put up a good fight. no flatheads though. here are some pictures of the fish:

[Matthew Cook]

forgot to mention, they were all released after a couple of photos.

[BIG-G]

Allrite Matt! Blast ain't it? LOL! Nice pics. What was your bait of choice?

[RamRod]

Great job, glad to see your catching fish. :D

[centralcalcat]

Great pics, looks like you had a blast.

-brian

[Matthew Cook]

we were using a variety of baits like shad, cut bluegill and cut carp. the second cat was caught on a huge green sunfish. i thought it was a flathead until he did that notorious channel head shake. the channels do this thing with there heads, where the rod tip bounces around in your hands and if you see the fish doing it, it looks like he is shaking his head. here are some more pictures:

[Matthew Cook]

it was really strange, all the fish were caught in the mourning. fished all night without a bite. i think the temperature is just getting a little to cold for them at night. and the sun is warming the water up just enough. here is some more:

[ohiocattracker]

WTG Matthew on a great day fishing,very nice fish.Is that a lake or a slow moving river there where you are fishing or should i say catching.

[Matthew Cook]

no it was a lake. the lake is like 40 feet down though. i just recently caught a 7, 8, and a 15 pound flathead there also. going back to the same spot wednesday. we might do a little bass fishing there to. that is if the cats don't keep us busy :hmm-big:

[willisjj]

Those are nice man. I think I posted that my wife caught a huge channel and that 10 lb. Flathead last week. She caught those at night, I guess we should have continue fishing into the daylight hours. Once the sun came up we started flyfishing for bass and bluegill and didn't bother with the catfish. Sounds like we may have come up with more cats if we had stuck with it. Don't think we are going to make it out again before moving to Oklahoma though. Look like yall had a good time out there, thanks for posting pics.

[Sean]

Nice fish, where at Pleasant is that?

I was out there alone last week, like 3am and I look down and there's a skunk right next to me with it's nose in my baitbag. I got up and walked away, skunk did the same thing, just glad he didn't spray me. Anyway, I'm watching the skunk, seeing what he's gonna do and I'm about 20 feet away from my poles, suddenly I get a bite. So I go back to my poles and I'm watching the skunk as I set the hook and reel in. Well I get it to shore and I guess my hookset wasn't very good cause when I went to lift him out of the water he fell off the hook. If I wasn't watching what that skunk was doing I prolly coulda got him out of the shallow water, but I missed him. :( I got skunked. I believe that skunk and that catfish conspired somehow to get my bait. I was looking forward to fried catfish too lol.

[willisjj]

I smelled a skunk the whole second night I was at Pleasant last week. Never seen him though which is just fine with me, lol. I had no stink bait or livers or anything else though, except a bucket full of live bluegill.

[Sean]

They're all over out there. Hell, my buddy was out there one night and one came out of the water right in front of him. Scared him silly haha. They're ballsy too, I guess they know people are afraid of them because they have no problems waltzing into a careless persons camp and eating food that's left out. Or in my case careless fisherman who leaves his baitbag out, never again. lol

[Matthew Cook]

ya it was at pleasant. i have encountered skunks many times, if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. they will run away before they will squirt you. the squirting is just incase the skunk can't escape.
hey Sean, was it a good fish? we probably lost 10 fish including a giant one. we had our bass rods with cut bait on them and also had our flathead rods out with green sunfish. the place we were fishing has a big drop off that you have to cast over if you want to get to deeper water. you either catch a fish and get him snagged, or you reel in your rod and break of your line.
Jeremy, where were you fishing? any idea how big the channel was?

[willisjj]

I bet that channel was every bit of 10 pounds too. I didn't weigh it for some reason. I have seen a lot bigger, but not out of there. I was fishing in that little cove on the north end. As you are driving down the blacktop before you come in site of the restroom, turn off to the right and drive out over the dried up lake bed there and its that first cove you see. Look down about 75 yards from where it starts and you will see part of a "gravel bar" sticking out of the water. Thats where we were fishing, casting to about 10 feet in front of that gravel bar. I think theres a deep channel that runs through there maybe. I know the rest is pretty shallow, but I couldn't touch bottom when I swam out there during the day.

[Sean]

Nah, mine wasn't big, but it was frying pan size and I haven't had fried catfish in like 2 weeks and I'm going through withdrawls. :(

[Matthew Cook]

i think the one we lost was a huge channel. he bit on a big bluegill on one of our flathead rods. i was almost sure it was a channel because the way he bit. we engage the clicker and when a flathead bites it is more of a slow steady pull. this one just zipped the clicker, then i picked it up and put it in free-spool. he came back for it and i set the hook. i guess the fish didn't like it very much because he shot for deeper water and got me snagged. he was pulling the drag out and all. i bet the 10 pound channel fought pretty good also.

[martinman]

Matt,

Those are some nice cats. I am kind of surprised that you didn't get any bites at night. It looks like the patience paid off. One thing is for sure...nothing is ever consistant, change is inevitable--even when the fish will bite.

Guys, I have another question for you all...The three big channels that I caught out of Roosevelt had a pretty blue tint to them. However, Matt's fish have the yellow/green/grey tint to them. Anyone else caught channels with the blue tint to them?

I know that the fish I caught are not blues because the anal fin was shaped like that on a blue.

Martinman

[Matthew Cook]

nope never caught a channel that resembles a blue. if you took pictures post them.

[LITTLEALK]

Pleasant and the Gila River are the only places I have caught channels that had the yellowish tint to them, everywhere else they are a silvery gray with a hint of blue. Pleasant channels are pretty fish though....

[asukevin]

i believe that bartlett channel cats have a slight yellowish tint to them as well

[LITTLEALK]

i believe that bartlett channel cats have a slight yellowish tint to them as well
Just was at bartlett this last weekend, they all had a silverish color to them

[asukevin]

hmm, my mistake. must have been somewhere else then.

[Matthew Cook]

i have caught different color cats everywhere. you know they can change color. they can go from a dark color to a light color. and flatheads can change from dark brown and grey to light tan and almost a green color.

[riverbud55]

matthew your right about the changing of colors pulled a 10lb flathead out of the river this last summer, fishing in about 10' of water in the weeds and grass, and the fish was almost black and dark brown,put in the live well an hour later the fish was a light camo green

I'v cought channels on the lower bill willams river and they come out yellowish mud brown but on the river down by blythe them channels come out a nice blueish silver-gray. also when its comes to eating them channels, I think them fish with the yellowish color don't have the as good as tayst as the fish in a clear running river