Great Day Fishing Sumos on the Red!!

[hanson]

What a great weekend! Hope everyone elses weekend was a good one. Summer is coming to an end and fall is sneaking up on us now. What a great time to sneak down to the river fishing channel cats. I'm not just talking any channel cats, I'm talking Red River of the North Channel Cats.

Fellow FM ProStaffer 'Fiskyknut' has been bugging me for sometime now to come up to his stretch of river and fish for these 'Sumo' Red River Channel Cats. He kept bugging me about 30-40 fish days with the average hovering around the 20lb mark. I had to take him up on it and finally made it up there on Saturday.

Now many people know about the trophy channel catfishing in Canada on the Red River at Lockport, but a few of you may be surprised to know that you can still get these piggies down on the ND/MN border. You won't catch as many of them but it offers up a great alternative to catch big channel cats without trekking all the way up to Canada.

Before I came up, Fisky did warn me that we would be fishing falling water levels which traditionally aren't the most productive for him. Ideally we would be wanting the river to be on a rise but that wouldn't be the case for us this day.

We arrived at our spot on the Red River in the neighborhood of Hallock, MN. Leopard Frogs were going to be the bait of choice today. I rigged one up, tossed it out, and waited. We hadn't had our baits set out more than a 1/2 hour when this beast decided to eat.

What a way to start out the trip!!

35" Red River Channel Cat, 20 Pounds

Can you say 'Sumo'?

Now Fisky, being the generous host that he is, allowed me to pull in the next few fish also.

33" Red River Channel Cat

And this one too...

31" Red River Channel Cat

And another one...

33" Red River Channel Cat

Now some of you might be thinking I like to reel in all the fish so here's one I let Fisky pull in that night.

Another 35" 20 Pounder!!

As you can tell from the photos, I had a little problem mastering the technique of landing these fish. Apparently, bear hugging a 20 pound channel cat covered in Red River mud is not the proper technique.

This trip was a blast! A big thanks to Fiskyknut for sharing his stretch of river. We had some good conversation, snacks, and drink. We'll be hooking up again later this month to do it again as well as chase a different type of bottom feeder also. Hmmmm... What will happen next.

[BarryG]

Looks like you guys had a GREAT day fishing! All days fishing are good, but when a great day comes along you really gotta enjoy that!

[Dan Thiem]

Wow! That must have been a blast! I bet it will be a while before those smiles wear off.

[rosspj59]

Nice Sumos Hanson!!!

[Cooter]

I NEED to go there next year!

[ivegottabite]

Looks like you had a great time Hanson! What type of areas were you fishing? Holes, snags? I need to get out around Fargo soon and am wondering what areas to concentrate on.

[Matt Johnson]

Looks like you guys got into some nice fish! I know Fisky has dominated the cats up there in the past, looks like this year was no different

Thanks for sharing the story and pics hanson!

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[Captain B.R.K]

Great trip and pictures Hanson! Looks like you might be hooked for life! This is a trip we did for 2 years straight and always did well. Those 20# came pretty regular for us to, but not as many......I'm a little jealous now that I didn't get up there this year! Always next year.

Great pic's again Hanson

[fiskyknut]

Hanson, sure was a good time to finally meet up wih you and fish. Figured when we did it would be chasing those big LOTW green and slimey's thru the ice but seeing how hard you were bit by the Cattin bug this trip worked well eh!!! Big thanks for pulling that nice one right away and letting me not have to worry about that all day long! You caught on to my awkward lefty baitcasters better than most too! Looking foreward to our trip back out to the Red later this month and the trip planned to get you some of those other whiskered beastlike fish out of the Rainy river.

Barry, it was a great day fishing, but believe it or not the catching was so-so. I had mentioned the rapidly falling water level to Hanson and my concern that the bite would be a bit off. He asked me what would be a good day when facing such conditions and I told him 5 or 6 fish with a good 1 or 2 thrown in would make me happy. We landed 7 so that was okay by me, good thing Hanson is so easy to please! A great day catching would be 10-12, or more per line up here this time of year.

gottabite, the river up this way is a completly different animal than the stretch down your way. Here you can go for miles before running accross any timber snags. When you do find snags up here they are usually quite massive and of course deserve attention. Pattern up here for me is primarily Mussell beds adjacent to deep water, find these and you will get fish. This particular spot Hanson and I were on is a spot I have fished since the late eighties when I found it during a way low water period, it has changed a wee bit thru the years but every year I am amazed again and again by the number of big fish it puts out consistently at various water levels during the fall season. This spot is a flats on the outside of a bend with numerous mussell bars on it, it is adjacent to a deep run straight across river on the inside of the bend which dumps into a very deep hole, this is the deepest hole for a good 5 miles in either direction. I prefer to fish where the fish come to feed and this spot is all that and is one to wait on as the big fish will show up here. Fishing holes is good at times but I would rather fish where the fish come to actively feed. Back when I lived in gfks this pattern held true there as well, at least north of the riverside dam. Another pattern up here to key on when the water is up is fishing shallow flooded stump/dead timber areas with slack or eddying water. Bait fished on the bottom works well, but a bobber setup drifted thru areas like this is waaaaay fun.....bobber goes down, angler sets hook, 20 pound Catfish jumps straight up out of the water like a bass! Then you have to keep them off the stumps while they run this way and that way and jump some more!

MattJ....When you gonna make it up? You're a multi species kinda guy, give those panfish a break maybe!!!

The Red River is a shorefishermans paradise and the fishing verges on downright easy at times, if you have'nt tried it now is the time of year to do her up right. Bite stays way good thru September and into October. I am expecting those big funny looking Walleyes to start showing up on our Catfish sets any time now too. Don't miss out on this fantastic fall fishery up in the NW corner of the state.

fiskyknut

[hanson]

You guessed it guys. I couldn't stay away!

Trip #2 up to the Red River of the North was much slower than the previous trips, and honestly one of Fiskyknut's slowest days ever up there. I really don't care if it was slow if you can catch fish like this.

First channel cat of the evening was this 'little' 32 incher.

We topped off the evening with this 'sumo' 36 inch, 20 pound channel cat!

Unlike last time, cutbait goldeye was working equally as well as frogs for bait. Frogs dominated our catch last time up.

We're not quite sure why the fishing was a little off this day. The river level was 6' lower than my previous trip 2 weeks ago and there was a pretty nasty thunderstorm cruising through right after the photos were snapped.

It is almost impossible to describe how slippery and sticky that Red River mud can get when it starts to rain. I won't mention how Fisky demostrated this to me.

Thanks for the company again Fisky! We'll definitely do the cattin' thing next fall but I'll run into you up on the big pond before then.

[MURPHFISHER]

Awesome cats there hanson. I know what you mean about that slippery mud. We experienced the same down here on the Zumbro last night