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

[hanson]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

[insurance guy]

Quote:

---

Dad absolutely killed me in the count. He had 16 cats to my 9, along with the biggest cat.

---

Can I point out the obvious. Next time you need to wear a "CAT" hat

[stmichael]

Great story and nice fish Hanson!

[Tyler Holm]

Beautiful story, report, and pictures. I love when the flasher looks like that!

Nice kitties. My kitty spot in Roch hasn't frozen yet, but I'm itchin to get after a few cats!

Another good readin Hanson

[Fergus Mor McErc]

It was nice to meet you Fri pm at Bob's bait shop. Glad you had some luck with your Dad along.

My luck with the pheasants wasn't quite as good Saturday am. I think I'm done with them now....onward to the ice!

[Gordie]

Nice cats! it was about three yrs ago that I caught my first cat through the ice and it was in the same waters that you fished and I cant wait to get back there, work is slow this week might just have to make the trip to richmond.

and again nice cats hanson.

[DTro]

Oh YEAH!

[IceHawk]

Nice cats Hanson glad to see you got into a few! Winter cats are definately a blast especially when your only a mile from the hot-spots!!

[hanson]

Quote:

---

It was nice to meet you Fri pm at Bob's bait shop. Glad you had some luck with your Dad along.

---

Good to meet you to sir! I think Bob's bait was the secret although the Shad I picked up was not the answer. Only fish I caught on Shad were walleyes. What is up with that? They'll eat anything!

[Blaze]

Just goes to prove that Vexilars actually HINDER your fishing!

Just kidding.

Great report, Hanson!