Selkirk Trip Report 2014

[DTro]

I thought I would put up a quick report of our recent trip to Selkirk. 4 of us made the voyage here from MN across the border (3 adults and 1 6yr old). We basically fished 3.5 days and caught fish the entire time we had a line in the water. It sure is a lot of fun when fishing is so good that it just becomes a numbers game! It got pretty crazy at times with doubles and triples, but I’m very confident that we weighed and accounted for nearly every fish. We generally fished in the time frame of 3pm to 1am every day but the stupid crazy action was from about 9pm-midnight. Day 4 was a bit different from the rest as it was nonstop action right when we first got there about 2pm and then really tapered off at night. In the end the grand total was 165 cats what weighed an astonishing 2818lbs. That’s an average of over 17lbs! Our biggest fish was 26.4lbs but we also caught 2 other 26lbers. Almost half the fish were over 20lbs (53 total) and only about 10 were under 10lbs. We also caught 2 tagged fish. Here is a breakdown of fish by weight day by day: (oh and for those reading this that might not know, these are all channel catfish, no flatheads or blues in this river).

Day 1 (half day): 21 18 16 22 15 18 23 26 21 11 22 21 12 12 11 24 20 8

Day 2: 22 12 21 20 26 15 18 18 24 12 21 21 22 19 2 3 17 20 19 18 21 21 21 19 14 16 18 18 14 22 20 5 19 19 21 18 17 13 18 22 19 17 26 5 11 15 17 22 16 23 3 15 19

Day 3: 18 18 15 14 20 11 17 14 15 15 18 20 17 17 20 5 21 23 19 8 23 22 16 18 17 21 19 19 18 12 12 17 2 23 21 17 22 21 25 15 20 16 12 21 12 21 22 23 21 24 23 17 2

Day 4: 13 14 15 20 19 4 8 19 18 18 17 17 20 10 17 14 18 16 11 18 18 18 13 17 17 18 24 16 13 18 18 19 15 21 17 19 19 20 10 20 16

We didn’t measure many fish, just the biggest one or two which was about 37.5 x 24.5.

As with past Selkirk trips/reports I’ve made, its tough to describe the experience unless you just do it yourself first hand. One of the guys with us was there for the first time and I think I recall him at one point during a triple, saying “All I can say is this is just out of hand”. LOL The best part of the whole deal is that you don’t need much catfish knowledge to catch fish in Selkirk. A little general knowledge goes a long way up there. Sure we have learned some valuable things over the past 4 or 5 trips, but during the latter part of August, IMO, it is about the closest thing you can get to “a sure thing” when it comes to catching fish. Get yourself some Frogs, a heavy set up, and find an outside bend. Not much else to it really. Once the fish let you know where they are in relation to the main channel, just make a few fine tune adjustments with either your casts or anchor position so that everyone in the boat can catch fish, and then just sit back and wait for the mayhem.

By the way, 6yr old Adam outfished the rest of us, with a total of 49 fish. We set up a little fighting chair for him and he winched every one of them in all by himself, The only thing we did was cast for him. To me this was truly amazing considering how hard these fish fight! A lot of fun to watch!

If you enjoy catfishing, this trip really needs to be on your bucket list.

[aanderud]

Nice recap Darren. Good video too! What a trip for a 6 year old to make. Long drive, but it's worth it. Caught almost a ton and a half of fish in just a few days. I imagine there are commercial fishermen who wouldn't mind those numbers, LOL! We had such a good time up there, not only because of the great fishing, but the good company in the boat. I know that Adam and I will never forget last weekend.

As Darren said in his video intro -- The red river north of Lockport is just an amazing fishery, and it's easy to fish. There very well might be "spots on the spot" up there -- we looked for things like holes, rocky/gravel areas, current seams, steeper drops/cuts on outside bends, etc -- but it seems like boats positioned in relatively random locations end up catching just as many fish. We thought we were on a pretty hot spot at one point, and soon some friends come by in their boat. They fished next to us for maybe 10 minutes, and then moved upstream about 1/8 of a mile and proceeded to catch 20 of these monsters in the next 3 hours (with just 2 people in the boat).

Also, for you shore fishermen out there -- lots of spots to hit. We pulled up to the boat landing one day and some kids were fishing right off the ramp, literally, and said they had 6 master angler fish in the last couple hours. Amazing compared to what we have around here. I don't think here in the Minneapolis metro area you can find a lake or river that will put up 6 of ANY species over 34 inches in a couple hours on a regular basis from a simple easy access shore location like that.

[mrklean]

Nice trip Darren, do they even have small fish up there?

[aanderud]

Nice trip Darren, do they even have small fish up there?

On day 2 we got like a 2 and a 5 pounder. On day 1 we got an 8 pounder. And on day 3 we got a couple under 10 lbs as well. They are mixed in occationally. I don't know where the majority of the small fish go. Maybe they just grow really fast there and get >10 within a couple years. I did notice that up to some we got in the 5-8 lbs range still had spots on them, LOL.

The trip average for all 165 fish, including those little guys, was like 17.05 lbs. Adam's individual average was like 18.06 lbs. Pretty solid AVERAGE. I'd just like to catch ONE 18 lb channel cat around here someday LOL.

[fiskyknut]

Love the pics of the Kid with those WHALES. Most excellent Darren !!

[DTro]

Thanks

I like this pic too!

[fishuhalik]

Thanks

I like this pic too!

Gotta love the double toothless grin

[HotPocket]

Sweet!!

[cam white]

Your boy handles a baitcaster better than most adults I have seen! Fantastic video. We really do have something special up here.