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Ice Fishing Cats... Dad's a Natural! (photos)

hanson

By hanson
in Catfish

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hanson Grand Master

hanson

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Two years ago, I took my dad out to catch his first catfish through the ice. That first trip did not go very well. The spots I wanted to fish were open water so our last resort was the community spot which could be hit or miss. On this day, it was a miss. This spot was pressured all winter and the cats were tight lipped. I eventually coaxed four cats into biting but my dad was left empty handed and fishless.

It has taken two years for my dad and I to meet up again on the Horseshoe Chain near Richmond, MN for some ice cattin'. Dad's expectations were pretty high as we hit the ice early Saturday morning to hopefully ice a few channel cats.

With the mild weather conditions we've been dealing with recently in Minnesota, I was a little concerned about ice conditions, especially on the Horseshoe Chain. You see, the Sauk River flows right through the middle of this connected chain of lakes commonly known as the Horseshoe Chain. Moving water and warm air temperatures are generally not good for ice formation and the chain commonly has areas of water open all winter. I was really quite surprised to find 8" of solid, clear ice where we were fishing. I should add though, if you want to fish Horseshoe and are not familiar with the chain, please use caution. Ice conditions constantly vary and open water is present in many areas due to the river and current. I can't stress this enough, be careful!

My game plan for Saturday was to auger a series of holes across the structure, in this case, a hole. I want to find the breaks, shallow water, and deep water to see what the cats are relating to. On this morning, the cats were all over. Every hole I dropped my Marcum transducer into revealed numbers of cats relating to the bottom.

This photo shows what I like to see when I'm out chasing kitties. You can see the bottom at about 33' on my LX-3 in red. The yellow and orange marks from 30' to the bottom are all cats, about 5 or 6 of them. There were actually more on the screen when I went to take the photo but must have been photo shy as they disappeared. That one yellow mark near the number 12 (24') is a suspended cat. Lots of folks are confused when you tell them cats suspend but that is what they do most of the time. Today, they were definitely tight to the bottom with a few that were found up higher.

121806marcumcatsbq6.jpg

About the time I'm hopping around locating the fish, my dad tells me that his (gasp!) Vexilar wasn't working. This was not good. When fishing cats, you are at a severe disadvantage if you don't have a flasher. You really need to know where they are suspending at and how they are reacting to your jigging presentation. Without a flasher, I thought my dad was going to have another bad experience fishing cats. After monkeying around with his Vex for awhile, I determined that his battery was shot and wasn't holding a charge. It worked fine when I hooked it up to the battery in my Marcum.

For the first hour or so of fishing, I was getting really frustrated. These fish had lockjaw. They absolutely would not touch a bait. Its hard to keep fishing schools of fish (as seen in the photo above) without them touching your bait. I was hoping it was just a timing issue and they would eventually get hungry. And I was right!

When 9am rolled around, it was game on! And guess who was leading the charge without his flasher, my dad! I think he found the sweet spot in the structure we were fishing because he kept hooking up with fish. There were a number of times where we had doubles going, and even one triple. What fun! Between taking photos, baiting up our setlines, and trying to catch fish myself, it was busy for awhile. And then just as fast as the bite started, it shut down as well.

Here's a photo of my dad with one of our nicer fish.

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Here's a photo of me with an average size cat for the morning. I thought the cats were definitely running on the small side for us for some reason.

121806chriswcat1lr4.jpg

When I fish for catfish under the ice, there are two techniques that I like to use. One rod will be a deadstick/setline with a plain hook and small piece of cutbait. The other rod will be my jigging spoon rod, usually tipped with a minnow head. This is a similar approach I use for walleyes, the classic 1-2 punch. On Saturday, I was giving JB Lures tackle a workout on the jigging spoon side. I had JB Lures 1/8oz Varmint spoons and JB Lures 1/8oz Weasel spoons in glow red tied onto our jigging rods and they both worked effectively well.

The one aspect of fishing cats which is really hard to understand unless you've fished them is how light they can bite at times. They are really like no fish I have fished for in this aspect, they can bite extremely light. Because of this, high quality equipment is a must for bite detection!

Here's a great photo that illustrates just how light a cat will bite. In this case, I happened to hook this one barely in the whisker. This is pretty typical of how you might hook a cat as they like to taste your bait with the corners of their mouth and whiskers before chowing down.

121806jbweaselcatxs6.jpg

Here's a photo of the big cat that smacked my dad's JB Lures Varmint spoon. Sometimes they'll hit with authority too!

121806jbvarmintcatnm4.jpg

When all was said and done, Dad absolutely killed me in the count. He had 16 cats to my 9, along with the biggest cat. Did I mention he did this without a flasher. So much for being a handicap. tongue.gif

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hanson Grand Master

hanson

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nice fish chris. randy looks like he's having a blast. got to give that a try this year. give me a holler next time you go maybe we could meet up.

Sure thing Joel! Rusty is trying to come down sometime this winter too. We just need to hope for some cold, cold weather to lock up the chain. Lots of good spots aren't accessible right now because they are open.

My next goal is to get my dad a big flathead. He's already mastered Red River channel cats and now ice cattin', so a big flattie is the next step.

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hanson Grand Master

hanson

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Great post, Chris! What did you use for line?

When I started out fishing cats, I was using Berkley Fireline in about 6lb test I believe. I was using Fireline for all my ice fishing. It worked alright. Then I went through a little time where I got frustrated with Fireline and switched to P-Line Floroice on the recommendation of many folks online. Thats all I've been using ever since. I think 3 of the rods had 4lb P-line spooled on them and one had 6lb. The stuff is incredibly strong.

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Wiskers Experienced

Wiskers

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I am not sure I will ever get over it......... He even comes to Crookston all the time and he never calls me to say he is going fishing. confused.gifconfused.gifconfused.gifconfused.gif

I even help his dad win big prizes for catching cats and big bucks but nooooooooooo he never calls....... I can't even get him to give me his cell number.... confused.gifconfused.gifconfused.gif

He must be doing somthing right, look at that awesome sweatshirt he is wearing. I can't even buy one of them.. LOL LOL LOL... Feeling bad yet Hanson? cool.gif

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hammerfive Apprentice

hammerfive

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Hanson, seeing as how you have peaked my interest in winter cats, I was wondering if you can give me a few places to start. I see you guys were in deep water tageting suspended fish, are there any other details that you are willing to give out? For instance, are all the lakes in the chain good? Where abouts is the open water? Were you on Horseshoe Lake? If you are not willing to give out this much information, I understand. I think I am going after my first winter cat on Sunday.

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Pikeslayer Community Regular

Pikeslayer

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WoW! Ice fishing for cats!Never heard of that trick!I fish the ST.CROIX by Grantsberg south of hiway 70 in the summer time when Im partying with relitives for the last 35 years! They always talk about eyes and Bass on the river, or bluegills on some lake by Siren.ILL have to ask my brother just what kind of secrets he's keeping from me! shocked.gif

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so haaad Veteran

so haaad

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Nice report, I hope it was not your guys vexilar battery I found out by the meth hole though.

Eric,

I'm certain the battery that you found was my spare. It's a black battery with white letters, right? I forget if I took off the "Ax-man" sticker or not.

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so haaad Veteran

so haaad

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Eric,

Don't worry about it. My loss is his gain. I didn't even know where I left it until last week when I finally saw your post. I have another spare already, so no problem. You been out for cats lately?

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