Channel Catfishing Holy Grail *videos added*

[RAB]

Glad you guys had a good trip.

I'd agree with the down river = bigger fish comment. I'd say all of my top 5 biggest fish have come between the spillway and the golf course.

[DTro]

Nice report and fish guys!!

I'm pretty sure I've got Jennie convinced to go next year! I think she was about 80% sure before the pictures and now I'm just about 100% sure it will be next year's vacation for us!!

Congrats to all for blowing your PB's out of the water!!

Tony, you would not believe how many couples (and women in general) are up there fishing. I guess those Canadian women know how to have fun.

Jennie would have a blast, I’m sure.

[uppdacreek]

Quote:

Tony, you would not believe how many couples (and women in general) are up there fishing. I guess those Canadian women know how to have fun.

Jennie would have a blast, I’m sure.

These are things I love to hear and I'm sure it will give her more confidence too. Yea those canuck women do know how to have fun, I hung out with a couple that were going to school when I lived in Duluth for 3 yrs and both of them loved fishing!

Did anyone say that a particular time of year is better?

[MinnesnowtaWild]

Glad you guys had a good trip.

I'd agree with the down river = bigger fish comment. I'd say all of my top 5 biggest fish have come between the spillway and the golf course.

The golf course upstream from Grand Forks?

[Slowhand]

Thanks for sharing the photos and story; sounds like you guys had a fun time.... "3 wieners in a bun", um....yea...how many of you went up there, 4? .

Anytime looks like a good time to head up there, but I can say you guys didnt miss anything around here for fishing when coming to flatheads. Is the take/fight the same as channels around here except on a grander scale?

[DTro]

Yep, I would describe the bite/fight very similar except exponentially greater.

I commented more than once that the 20lb plus fish compared to the same size flat around here, wasn’t even close. It normally takes a high 30’s to even a 40lb flat to aggressively rip out drag on my 7000’s. These fish had no problem doing that. I can’t imagine what a BIG one would do. OK, maybe I can.

It’s a trade off though using big gear, especially near the dam. Steve really dialed in the bite up close there and he had much greater success and less fatigue using lighter gear and using a finesse technique vs the heavy flathead gear.

[SteveD]

Yep, I would describe the bite/fight very similar except exponentially greater.

I commented more than once that the 20lb plus fish compared to the same size flat around here, wasn’t even close. It normally takes a high 30’s to even a 40lb flat to aggressively rip out drag on my 7000’s. These fish had no problem doing that. I can’t imagine what a BIG one would do. OK, maybe I can.

It’s a trade off though using big gear, especially near the dam. Steve really dialed in the bite up close there and he had much greater success and less fatigue using lighter gear and using a finesse technique vs the heavy flathead gear.

I was using a Salt Striker ABF 40 spinning reel spooled with 30 lb HiVis PowerPro on a Shakespeare Ugly Stick Medium Heavy Catfish rod. That combo worked real well and handled several 20+ lb fish just fine. The 30 lb test PowerPro was thin enough in diameter to cut through the current better I think than the higher 80 lb test lines.

You get hung up a lot in the current and rocks. After breaking off a few times I started using 2 oz or 3 oz flat bank sinker on a rubber band hung on a sinker slide and then when my sinker would get hung in the rocks I could just break off the sinker. That saved me from having to retie a complete slip rig many times. I also hung a small rattle bobber about 4 inches in front of my hook and that seemed to help me from getting hung up as much too. It didn't seem to interfere with the bite at all.

There are a lot of old fishing lines hung up on all of the rocks and debris near the dam and you find yourself hung up in old lines as much as you do in the rocks. It is very hard to get out of those snags.

[aanderud]

So yeah, the people up there are super friendly. Stu is always willing to give some tips on where to go, what to use, etc. While I guess that's usually the case with most resort owners, he puts the extra Stuey spin on everything and he's pretty fun to bee-ess with. Well, probably more fun in the winter when there aren't mosquitos EVERYWHERE. Nice weather like we had is both good and bad that way. But, I'm not going to complain compared to some of the alternatives we could have had.

What surprised me was is how extremely helpful people up there fishing. Ask around in the metro lakes how the bite is, and most people will just say something quick to get you to leave. "Miller Time" was not only giving us the skinny on where they're biting, what they're biting on, etc. but they were offering fresh bait as well! Thanks much, you know who you are!!

As for the wieners in the bun....here's the story. There's a restaurant up there called Skinner's. It's apparently "world famous" for their hot dogs. Steve D asked "what is a poutine", and she was like "you're not from Canada, are you". That was funny enough, but then I notice that they have a whole array of choices for wieners...hot dogs, double dogs, triple dogs, super dogs, smokies, etc. Not knowing what the difference between all of these, I say "what's a triple dog". She replies "three wieners in a bun". Dtro was quick with the "sounds just like his bedroom!" comment.

Then I ask what a "super dog" is. She replied "it's longer than a footlong and as thick as a smokie". We were almost rolling on the floor at that point. I asked "well is the super dog better than a smokie", and she says "well, I'd get a smokie, I can't eat a whole super dog". So I couldn't ask any more questions, I just went ahead and ordered two smokies. Turns out, the smokies aren't all that great. Neither is the poutine.

The fish bite hard. Have good rod holders, or the fish are definitely going to just break them. Also, don't be afraid to use the slightly lighter rods so you can hold them without getting fatigued, like Dtro said. It's fun feeling them pick it up, they will sometimes hit almost as hard as a flathead with a single thump, then wait a bit before swimming off with it. Nice to feel instead of just seeing it double over in the holder. I liked the way the 3/4 ton from team catfish handled the fish. I have one of the smaller ugly sticks that steve d used, but I didn't bring it unfortunately. It looked like it was a good fight as well. Oh yeah, and depending on where you are, you might be better off not using the rod holders at all simply because in the holders, the sinker gets dragged around a bit more and is much more likely to snag than if you hold it and use the human shock absorber to compensate for boat sway, current surges, etc.

I would have followed Steve's advice with the rubber band and sinker slide trick to avoid losing hooks so much, but I always seem to have cruddy luck with my sinker slides getting twisted in my line and stuff. I think his have a different design that might have helped him out, they're about an inch long or so, whereas the ones I have are only like 1/2 inch long. Once I figured out how to suppress my A.D.D. urge to reel things in and jig things up and down and whatnot all the time, I snagged up quite a bit less, so that's good.

After using the orange fish gripper things that Steve brought, I am definitely going to have to get one (or two) for my boat. Those things really work well for channel cats. I don't really fish for channels around here, and I usually just stick my hands in a flathead's mouth, but I'm getting some before I go back to lockport FOR SURE.

[RAB]

Which cabin did you guys stay in?

Some decent walleyes and pictures on the walls eh?

[Scott M]

Great recap. Sounds like a ton of fun. Me thinks I'll be making the trip to the Red soon...I already want to get up there for winter walleyes...Maybe a spring and winter trip should be in the books!

[aanderud]

We were in cabin 7. There was a walleye that was 15 pounds or better on the wall, and some nice pictures of some cats too. A decent sized deer up on the one wall too.

Stu also showed us a life-size blowup of the largest sturgeon he's had the pleasure of seeing. It was a 78 incher that was caught on something like June 19 of 1996 by a gal named Jennie. It's crazy big.

[Larry FlatCaster]

We were in cabin 7. There was a walleye that was 15 pounds or better on the wall, and some nice pictures of some cats too. A decent sized deer up on the one wall too.

Stu also showed us a life-size blowup of the largest sturgeon he's had the pleasure of seeing. It was a 78 incher that was caught on something like June 19 of 1996 by a gal named Jennie. It's crazy big.

78 inches?!?!?!? OMG..... Crazy big... whoah... I though 60 inches was huge...

[Gordie]

now I've heard it all. I've heard of alot of life sized blow-up things but never a sturgeon how cool is that and that is wicked big 78 inches WOW

Brain there would have been no way I could have kept a straight face with the wiener comments. thats a good one. and it reminds me of a joke with popeye involed someday I'll tell you that one

[DTro]

Here's a couple of videos:

[MinnesnowtaWild]

Cool videos guys.

I'm just curious...what is the depth at the bottom of that dam?

[DTro]

4-10ft, depending on how hard and what direction the wind is blowing

[MinnesnowtaWild]

That's it?

[DTro]

I watched several guys catching 20 pounders in 2 fow under a bobber that was set at 1ft.

[Gordie]

thats my kinda fishing get to watch the splash befor the bobber goes down

[Larry FlatCaster]

Nice.... thanks for sharing..

[SteveD]

That's it?

I know it seems kind of strange that the water was that shallow near the dam. I was expecting to find a deep scour hole and that was not the case at all. From what we could tell right at the base of the dam was a shallow concrete pad that was about 20 to 30 feet long and then the water dropped into shallow rock / rubble anywhere from 5' to 10' that carried back into the river area. It was hard to define a pattern to fish. We had some success just casting a bait at the base of the dam and try to get it to hold on that concrete pad. If your bait drifted off the pad into the rocks and rubble you had a pretty good chance of getting snagged up. I could get a 2 to 3 oz flat bank sinker to hold most times by holding my rod high and try to keep my line tight to the sinker. The current wants to grab your line and will sweep it and your sinker into the rocks. That was why a light rod and thin line helped me - I could hold my rod up and maintain a better tight line to my rig without getting fatigued.

There really was no miracle pattern that I could discern. The fish seemed to be cruising the entire area and would move up onto the base of the dam to feed and then seem to drop back into the rocks to rest. Underneath the surface turbulence there has to be a lot of current seams and current breaks that you cannot figure out looking at the turbulence.

Near shore there were some rock outcroppings that would be exposed when the water went down. People shore fishing would wade out to them when the water was down. While we were there the water fluctuated maybe 3 feet or so based on the way the wind was blowing. Boats would anchor off that shallow rocky area and cast bobbers that would drift back in the current and would catch some nice channels cruising in that shallow water. Brian and Darren tried the bobber thing several times. It is kind of a lot of work - the current is pretty fast and you need to tend your line so you are capable of a quick hook set. It is an exciting way to fish and we watched several boats catch some nice fish doing the bobber thing.

We got some advice about fishing down river in the deeper water in the main channel and after some searching found some nice fish. It seemed like the bigger fish were downstream. It was nice to have a break from the dam area - the constant noise from the rushing water of the dam gets to you after a while. We had one great evening where we got on some fish downstream and had some nice steady action. By the time somebody hooks up, works the fish into the boat and you untangle everything and get some photos and release the fish a good 15 to 20 minutes is eaten up. Time just flys when you are having fun.

[smoothy]

Looks like a ton o fun. Thanks for sharing the pics and video.

[Blue Kayak]

What great pictures and videos. Thanks for sharing.

Not only is the fishing fantastic, but this area is a great family vacation destination. If you have a family, start planting the seed that the Winnipeg area would be a fun place to visit.

[aanderud]

Originally Posted By: aanderud

We were in cabin 7. There was a walleye that was 15 pounds or better on the wall, and some nice pictures of some cats too. A decent sized deer up on the one wall too.

Stu also showed us a life-size blowup of the largest sturgeon he's had the pleasure of seeing. It was a 78 incher that was caught on something like June 19 of 1996 by a gal named Jennie. It's crazy big.

78 inches?!?!?!? OMG..... Crazy big... whoah... I though 60 inches was huge...

Yeah, I guess they had the same problems with people thinking sturgeon made great firewood up there that we had on the Rainy/LOTW system "back in the day". So, there aren't a lot of sturgeon -- not enough to target them or worry about opening a season or anything. (I think only 29 or 30 fish over 60 inches have been registered on the master angler program since 1991). But, there is an occasional fish. The good thing is that it's not like accidentally hooking into one on the Rainy in the middle of summer when you are walleye fishing with 6 lb test with a medium light jigging rod...up on the Red at least people are mostly spooled up for cats, so the gear gives you a better chance to land that 130 pounder if he does bite.

The picture had 2 guys on the ends, and the gal who caught it in the middle, holding the fish horizontally. It looked like it took all of them to hold that fish comfortably. The picture was as long as a couch. I tried to do a quick google search but couldn't find any pics online. There probably weren't a lot of pics, given that it was released. Stu might have one that he's willing to share, if he reads this forum.

Oh and in case anyone was planning to call bee-ess, the Manitoba Master Angler list has the fish listed at 78.5 inches, caught by Jenny L. Regan on June 19, 1996.

Stu, might as well put the picture up here! It was sweeeet. Plus, it's sturgeon season down here on the St. Croix, it'll get people fired up.

[Ed Carlson]

You never know when a old Lake Winnipeg sturgeon will pop up on the dam up there.

Back in 96 or 97 Big Shanon, Jim Moyer, and I were pre-fishing the "International Cats Classic" and I hooked into a Polaris Missile off the Cork'n Flats near the fish ladder. I figured out preaty quickly...it was not a kitty...too fast a mover....rocketed by the boat and kept acceleration in a B-line across the heavy current...and my ABU Big Game reel smoked...literally smoked!

In a matter of 30 seconds or less she ran parallel the whole face of the St. Andrews dam...nearly spooled me..went airborne near the locks and still looked 6' long that far away...and then she took a hard right and headed for Lake Winnipeg before we could get the anchor up and the motor running and off the rocks.

That fish schooled me in a major way...It was #@%@#% awesome Eh!

FYI: The picture of that sturgeon you seen in Stu's Cabin at "Cats on the Red" is up on his web site, in the sturgeon pic's section.