Channel cats (tusc river) 11-04-05

[tcba1987]

fished the tusc tonight with my dad for channel cats. we fished from 5 till around 8 pm. i had 5 good hard runs on chicken liver and only hooked one fish a 26 inch 6 lbs channel cat. dad didnt even have a hit. the leaves are terrible in the tusc river right now. i was picking 5 lbs of leaves off of my line everytime i reeled in. the fish are still hitting aggressively, they ran HARD on all of the hits that i had. anyone have an idea what the water temp would be ??? oh yeah caught one 18 inch saugeye on a firetiger green colored cordell baby wiggle O crankbait.

[flathunter]

My guess is the water temps in the rivers where you live are in the mid 50's...And yes those leaves are a major pain right now!

[H2O Mellon]

Flatty,

I talked to TPet yesterday, they had a carp outing @ COSI, the Scioto was between 48-49 degress. Hard to beleive, huh.

[tcba1987]

is there a temperature where the channel cats will pretty much stop hitting ?? or will they honestly bite all winter with any consistency ?? ive had a blast fishing this late into the fall and catching channels. my biggest fish have all come in october and november. ive had a lot of success on chicken livers , had a guy come up to me the other day and say hey you should be using cut shad or cut creek chubs. he guaranteed id catch twice as many channels on cut baits what do you all think ??? :confused:

[jason454ci]

Been seeing good resaults with shad out this way. Might be worth a try for ya.

[Katmaster Jr.]

Cut shad or creek chub for sure.....alot better than livers in my opinion. If you want trophy channels use big pieces of cut bait, if your after decent sized ones (2-8 lb) for instance, than use smaller pieces of cut bait.
Hope this helps :)

[flathunter]

I have caught channel cats all winter long.