Hanson

[J Rookie K]

Glad to see your interest in the BP Cat League. There is always room. Papa Grump is the " President " now, so he will have to get the ball rolling. Check the Tournament/League forum on this site, any info should be posted there. If not keep checking the MN River, or this one.

[Papa Grump]

Hanson- Your more then welcome on the league. Me and Hoops will be taking the River Pro's out of storage next month for a trip to Red Wing. Plan on a meeting at the end of March. I will be posting something in the Tourney section beginning in March ( after the cat gathering at Horseshoe) explaining the details of the past years and what to look forward to this year.

Brian

[hanson]

Hey guys!

If you guys would like me to be a part, I would love to be there. Cattin is fairly new to me but I'm addicted now. I'll be up at the Cool Cats event on Horseshoe in 2 weeks. By the way, I managed a 10 pound channel out of Horseshoe last weekend. My biggest cat yet. Lots of room for improvement. My biggest obstacle is being boatless in the summer.

Flashman recommended I check out the BP cat league when I was up at Rusty Miller's cat gathering in Crookston this summer.

[Dennis Steele]

BP cat league is a great time. What is great about it is you get to fish with a different partner at each event so you get to learn a lot from some of the seasoned catmen who fish it.

[Captain B.R.K]

What rivers are fished in this league or shall I say what waters?

[Dennis Steele]

I don't know if anything has changed since I fished the league, but its boundaries were on the MN River from Mankato to Shakopee I believe.

Its actually the "Belle Plaine" Cat League and Belle Plaine is the center of its boundaries.

The thing I learned most from fishing the league is how to spell Belle Plaine!

I was in charge of getting league shirts one year and misspelled it! I don't think they will ever leave that up to me again!

The guys who fish it are all great guys. SOme very knowledgable rats as well.

[DARK30]

Yup, the Bull Plan Catfish League is a fun way to learn new tricks and meet new friends!

[MNRiverRat]

Click, Click, Click....

There I go again, be patient, be patient...

I'm looking forward to another good year. I have a new rider to take along, he's a 5 month ol black lab pup. I hope he likes fishing as much as me!

I'm already planning on how to track Hoops and misplace his pet kitties he is always catching. Someone has to beat up on him this year, I might as well give it a whirl.

Couple of more months, bummer....

MNRiverRat

[CC Hurl]

Hello Hanson,

Wondering if you could tell me what road to take to the nearest access onto Horseshoe to get to the meth hole. I have read in the past that there can be open water there.

Should a guy bring a sled or can you drive to the cat holes.

Like i said before i am blind to this area and want to play it on the caution side of things. Any land marks i should look for to help me get into the correct area? Sorry to ask so much. Hopefully i can return a favor in the future.

Are those little yellow tube looking bobBers what you guys consider an icebuster. Might sound like a stupid question, but i ussually just called a bobber a bobber.

Thanks again for the help and good luck to you.

CC HURL

[hanson]

CC Hurl-

Check this thread out- Cool Cats 2005

Dennis has a map at the very top that shows the 'meth hole' location and the access we will be using to get there.

Ice Buster bobbers are the yellow foam bobbers with the red bottom.

I like to trim the bobber down so the top of it sits level with the surface of the water. There is much less resistance this way when a light biting cat takes your bait.

[CC Hurl]

Hanson

I would like to thank you for the help getting me started on what sounds like allot of fun. I will let you know how it goes for us. I do use the icebuster bobber so i have them. If you are out tommorow i drive a green blazer and will be pulling an arcticat sled. The same sled i put thru the river up north two weeks ago. SCARRY !!!

Hey thanks again and good luck with your weekend travels.

CC HURL

[hanson]

Hope things go well for you.

I'll be up at Upper Red Lake for the entire weekend so you probably won't see me out there.

Good Luck

[CC Hurl]

Hello Hanson,

Well i went up and tried it. Big goose egg.

i went out to the point accross from the meth hole. It looked like the same spot in those pictures. I was in 30 FOW using sucker minnow cut bait on the bottom. Did not show much on the vex. Moved from there around 4:30 pm.

Went to the bay to the right of the landing and tried for crappie. They were down there just not bighting for me.

I am not giving up that easy on them cats. I know how fishing can be. Being green at it and not knowing the waters up there sounds like a tough start anyway. Thanks again for your help. With any luck i will try getting up there for the coolcats event.

What time do people ussually start showing up?

The wife even say's that i may get out of shoping with her. If that is the case i will be there with one or both of my boy,s.

Well talk at you later and hope things went good for you on RED.

CC HURL :

[hanson]

CC Hurl-

I think Dennis, Rick, & Captain BRK were up scouting for Cool Cats sometime last weekend. I thought I read Dennis got skunked also.

I plan on being up there sometime around sunrise on Saturday. Cool Cats is an informal event with emphasis on FUN and comaraderie! Dennis has some door prizes to be given away and there will also be a fish fry, etc.

There are better spots on the chain for cats but I can't give them out. Hope thats understandable. Corey Bechtold fishes the chain quite abit in the summer and catches them all over the place. I'll give you a tip and say if you study up a little on catfish and take a look at a lake map of the Horseshoe Chain, you might be able to put the pieces together.

Hope to see you at Cool Cats. If nothing else, swing by for a few hours.

[Dennis Steele]

CC,

We were up on the Chain last weekend.

We did not get skunked but the bite was slow for a good part of the morning. We were fishing a decent hole, but the fish were just not on.

One trick I have found is that you have to move around and find the cats that will bite. We ended up scouting the entire hole basically from the front to the back and from side to side and finaly found a few active fish at the back of the hole. All in all I beleive that about 2 dozen fish were caught there when the day was done.

One other thing you can try is to have your baits placed a few feet off the bottom. I haven't ever caught a cat through the ice with a bait placed on the bottom.

A lot of times the active cats will come in suspended any where from a few feet off the bottom all the way up to 10 feet. Sometimes even higher.

When they are on the bottom the active ones will come up several feet to investigate your bait. I play a little game with them and play "keep away". When a cat approaches your bait, pull it up slowly a few inches, away from the cat. Often this will trigger a bite.

A good sonar is a must, to find these pods of cats. I shoot my Marcum through the ice before I even drill hole. When I find a school of cats, I start drilling where I marked them then drill more holes away from the school. Often the cats will move around. When the bite slows in the hole that you have been seeing or catching fish out of, move to your other holes and try there. Its not uncommon to follow a school of cats around all day!

[hanson]

I have to agree with everything Dennis said also.

The cats I was catching for the most part were 3-6' off of the bottom. My cut bait was typically set 2-3' off the bottom and I would reel if up if I found the cats were coming through a little higher.

I may have posted before that I would find 5-6 fish on my Marcum at one time. I try to fish the highest suspended fish first just like panfish. Some of the time, I would find them suspended halfway and reel my Scenic Tackle Go-Devil up to find crappies!! Darn crappies!!

As far as holehopping goes, I'm agreeing once again. One of my favorite places, I found fish in every hole I augered and fished the one with the most fish on the flasher. When that one cooled off, I checked my other holes out until I found a bunch of fish again.

I would also like to add that most of the cats I caught were EXTREMELY light biting. If you were not somewhat finesse fishing these fish, you might not have known you had a bite. This was not the entire case but a lot of the cats were very tight lipped. Some took the bait and swan like crazy but some didn't.

[CC Hurl]

Sounds like i will need to spend more time learning these waters. Looks to be promising for a guy willing to spend the time to learn certain parts of the lake.

I will be there saturday morning just before sunrise with pole in hand waiting for you Hanson. LOL

Just kidding. It is looking like i may get to head up that way saturday. Just need to keep the boss happy during the week. Not to hard of a task.

Thanks Again to you guys giving tips on what to do.

CC

[Papa Grump]

Hanson- I plan on being up for the cat gathering, and hopefully Hoops will be tagging along so any questions about the BP Cat league we can fill you in on it.

Brian

[hanson]

Papa Grump-

I can't tell you how excited I am for the BP Cat League this summer. Catfish are pretty new to me but I've got the bug now.

I was even looking at cat rods at Gander last weekend. I'm going to have to get some new equipment to be prepared for this.

I'm also in the planning stages of a trip up to Lockport with Rusty Miller. Once we get the details worked out, I don't think I'll be able to sleep.

[Captain B.R.K]

SAME O as Dennis and Hanson stated! Those cats move around in pods and will come in and out of the area underneath your hole. One time you'll graph something and the next they are gone.

I caught 7 on Saturday and my most active fish came about 4-6ft off the bottom!

At times they loaded up my vex. on the bottom 6 ft of the water column.