Cub Cats

[Bumpkin74]

OK, I know most folks in here are after the really big ones. What if I wanted to catch some dinner-sized cats, like the ones I get at Cub? Do they hang out in the same places as the big monsters, or is there another approach that works better on these? Can you even eat them or do you recommend sticking with the farm-raised stuff from the store? I'm talking about cats in the 12 to 20 inch range. Call me crazy, but if I could catch a small stringer of dinner fish conistently, I'd be excited about that. I'm pretty new to fishing, so my threshold is not as high as you guys. Thanks.

[DTro]

They can be found in shallow faster moving water in the trees. They are fine to eat, but I would follow the MN DNR's safe eating guidelines out of the MN river. If I remember right it's something like 1 meal a month or something like that.

Stinkbait works good for catching these little fiddlers.

[Slowhand]

What Dtro said on catching. Some folks prefer smaller flathead, but I prefer the smaller channels; also its preference, but I prefer just taking the backstraps out of the cat and medallion those for tablefair leaving the tail section(most of the mudline) and belly meat for growing tomatoes. You'll definitely notice how much firmer the flesh is compared to farm-raised; enjoy.

[riverrat56]

If you really want some cats to eat, I'd check out a local lake with a decent population of channel cats. Probably much "cleaner" in terms of consumption guidelines and also if it is a deeper lake the meat may be a bit more firm.

[Slowhand]

I never have ate a cat out of a lake, just commercial-raised restuarant, but I would find it hard to fathom the flesh coming off a cat out of a lake would be firmer imho.

[bobbymalone]

the difference is the cats eat real food versus dog food pellets and they have a greatly expanded range to swim around.

[Slowhand]

Yeah for sure...even walleye though out of river flakes better than lake 'eye for my taste. I think current could play a role as well.

[Bumpkin74]

Thanks guys. I always learn something in here. Nice info.

dan