Channel Catfish Photo Gallery

[Rick G]

[FshBloodRiverMud]

[Mr Special]

nice

wish u we've seen wat ripped th rod holder out

[FshBloodRiverMud]

nice

wish u we've seen wat ripped th rod holder out

That was a 50" sturg.

[OnAFly]

Drove out to the St Croix last night with my canoe for my first catfishing outing of the year and realized I forgot my paddle. Luckily I was able to borrow one from the DNR guy at the station. The water definitely was as high as it was in April, but the water seemed to be flowing much slower. I was able to get to a few spots and only managed this little guy before I had to go return the paddle before the station closed down for the night.

Not big, but hey, I'm 100% so far this year!

[aanderud]

Ha. That's sweet, ANY fish and some fun canoeing beats sitting in the house any day!

[FshBloodRiverMud]

[Mr Special]

32x20

30x17

[FshBloodRiverMud]

Atta way PHil! I couldn't catch one over 28" this weekend.

Looks like you have a few empties in the splashwell

[Mr Special]

thx bud.

awh shoot i knew i forgot to crop sumthing out lol

as ya know Bottle Bass are always biting

[tunell78]

nothing huge, but it was my first catfish

[FshBloodRiverMud]

Had a great birthday Friday.

163 KOTC points in 8 hours.

19 Channels Caught.

6 fish over 33"

Including two 36" fish

[FYGR8]

This is a cat!!!!!

[aanderud]

LOL. Look at the gut on that catfish! Holy cow. That's so funny. Nice one!

[MN BassFisher]

I hit a river backwater on Saturday and surprisingly caught my first Channel through the ice.

[mn86]

Decent Mn river channel to start the year

[Stick500]

Awesome! I can't believe you're catching big cats out of the MN already.

I hear stinky rotten cut bait is a good after-ice-out bait as that is what they're gorging on.

What did you catch that bad boy on? I still have some leftover stink/punch bait that worked really well for me in the late summer last year.

[mn86]

fresh still bleeding cut bait. changing baits every 20 minutes or so.

[Stick500]

I took your tip mn86 and caught this 29-incher yesterday from shore in the MN River- frozen sucker cut bait. I would have never gone after cats this early if I didn't hear from you guys that they were being caught.

The really cool part is, this was a tagged fish! I put in all the info to the DNR via the internet and I asked if they could contact me with the fish's previous history- I'm dying to know. Of course I let it go- caught it with a circle hook, so no damage. Healthy looking fish.

[mn86]

cool picture!

[DTro]

Nice! You'll probably be getting a reply from Joel Stiras. He's has been tagging a lot of fish in P2 the past few years.

Yeah the channels get going pretty early, the bigger ones are still a bit deeeper yet in the holes but this warmer weather will get things cooking for sure and they should be moving around a lot.

Here is a 33" from Sat

[mn86]

nice fish

[Stick500]

You guys were right- Joel from the DNR is the one who replied- that was quick!

I'm so impressed he took the time to write the following;

Thank you for taking the time to notify us about the tagged catfish you caught recently. It is a good report and I really appreciate it. The location is usually the biggest problem on the online reports, but you did a great job plotting the location on the map and had a good description that confirmed the location. I just want to go through the report to confirm all the details are correct and I have the history of that fish for you.

You reported catching a tagged channel catfish in the Minnesota River, tag #94079, on 4/12/15. You reported the length as 29 inches and the fish was released with the tag still in the fish. Is all of that correct?

We caught that fish in a trammel net in lower Pool 2 of the Mississippi River, near Spring Lake on 11/19/12. At the time it was 29.2 inches long and weighed 11.85 pounds. That fish traveled about 47 river miles from where we tagged it to where you caught it, but who knows how far it went outside of that. We’ve tagged close to 2000 catfish in Pool 2 and we don’t have very many tags in channel cats over 10 pounds (probably less than a dozen) so catching a tagged one over 10 pounds is definitely a rarity. We didn’t remove a spine from that fish for aging, so I can’t tell you how old it is. Based on other channel cats of a similar size, on average it would be about 16 years old but could be anywhere between 11 and 20+.

Thanks again for the great report and let me know if you have any questions. If that fish is caught again, whether it is an angler or DNR personnel, I will be sure to let you know.

How odd is it that the fish apparently hasn't grown any in 2 1/2 years!

[DTro]

Cool! You can watch Joel spine and tag a big channel here.

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/HEZ1YKkhT5Q

[aanderud]

We caught that fish in a trammel net in lower Pool 2 of the Mississippi River, near Spring Lake on 11/19/12. At the time it was 29.2 inches long and weighed 11.85 pounds. That fish traveled about 47 river miles from where we tagged it to where you caught it

Wonder if that fish winters in one of the deeper holes in pool 2, then spends summers in the MN river?

Always surprises me that fish are willing to travel that far. I guess it's nothing compared to the migration of a snow goose or something, but a snow goose has to migrate to find food and survive over the winter. A fish, you'd think, would be able to find a wintering hole less than 47 miles away!