Cattin' the Chain '10

[73h h4x]

Maybe someone with a camera can shed light on this... but my experience has been that those super "light bites" aren't really bites.. they seem to just feel it with their whiskers... i catch a lot of them in the side of the face or at the base of the whisker instead of in the mouth. sharp hooks are a must.

Note.. I'm not advocating snagging, but that's basically what's happening.

[Hory]

When fishing for cats, I usually use 2 similar rods. One is spooled with 3lb test and the other 6lb. Should I use the heavier line for my deadstick, or for my jigging? Thanks

[DTro]

Yes, they will brush against the bait from time to time. I’ve watched with a camera though and when that does happen, you can neither feel it, or see it on a bobber.

The ones that hit the bait enough to move the bobber 95% of the time have the bait in their mouth. The other 5% they are swatting it with their tail.

We do have a small number that we just aren’t quick enough on the hookset with, and the hook ends up in the whiskers, but that happens rarely. For example, last Sat we caught a total of 42 fish, and only one was hooked in the whisker. That is what, about 2.5%?

The light bites, are exactly that…..light bites.

[JigginGopher]

I've been reading about the "magic hour" at dusk on this forum. Is there much of a "magic hour" at dawn based on your experiences???

[Borch]

Early morning can be good. However, I haven't tested this so far this season as the evening bite has been pretty solid.

[aanderud]

The wisker sniffers don't lift the bobber out of the water 1/8 inch and hold it for 1/2 second (or down 1/4 inch for that matter). When I say they're biting light, this is the type of thing I mean. They suck it into their mouth and hold it for anywhere between 1/2 second and 3 seconds. Heck, once in a while they even take off with it. These are unmistakably bites.

There are times when the bobber just twitches momentarily, neither lifting up nor moving down. Those are tail-swatters, forehead rammers, or they could be biting and spitting out very quickly I suppose, but at any rate they're not what we're catching.

[icehousebob]

I was at the Meth Hole yesterday in 34 ft of water.Lots of fish showing in the bottom six feet. No takers until the sun was on the tree line. Chicken liver caught the most but whole minnows on red glow jigs caught bigger ones. Nothing on jigged lures, all were caught on ice busters or spring bobbers. The larger ones came at sundown, after dark was mostly small ones. The only chicken livers I could find were frozen and they get mushy when thawed. Anyone know where fresh ones can be obtained? Has anyone tried pork liver or beef liver? I think they would hold together better.

[so haaad]

Your grocery store should have the local brand of chicken livers. Cub, Rainbow, etc. Even Super Target had them. I've used other livers and innards, but chicken livers seems to work the best.

[DTro]

We also try and keep them at a just a bit above frozen state. When they thaw, yep they suck to work with.

If they start getting too soft, try packing the container in snow to keep the temp down.

Thanks for the report Bob!

[MinnesotaMuskie]

Is it safeto drive out to the Meth Hole?

I sold my perm and now have a Eskimo on a trailer:)

[DTro]

It's very safe with about 30" of ice, but there is a bunch of snow on top as of last weekend, and I wouldn't go out there without 4WD.

[icehousebob]

DTRO, I was out yesterday with two wheel drive and yes, a lesser man than I would not have made it. Seriously, its rough out there. The road has changed and to get to the place I wanted to fish, I had to carefully follow old wheel tracks, making back and forth runs at some of them. I have positraction and a very aggresive set of tire chains. And still, I puckered up a couple of times.

On the fishing, I tried blue glow jigs and plain hooks with minnows with no takers. And the only fish I caught were about a foot off the bottom. The higher up ones wouldn't hit for me.

[aanderud]

Slower bite tonight, but those that bit seemed way more aggressive. I'd say >50% of our fish took a bobber all the way under even! LOTS of lookers, though. Man, it can be frustrating watching them stare at your bait and not eat it!

Only 2 fish before 6 pm. Bite was pretty steady between 630 and 1030, other than a couple 1/2 hour dry spells in there. Final tally got sorta mixed up but we ended up with something like 33 fish. We fished long enough for both of us to be in double digits at least.

One really nice fish in the 5.5 lbs range, otherwise all between 1/2 pound tiny guys and 3 pounders.

[DTro]

Always fun when you can call a 30+ fish night a "slower bite"

Every time we tried to leave we would get a flurry and have to stay another 15 min.

Nice meeting a couple of you out there tonight as well.

Once again, Ice Cat Aanderud put on a clinic outfishing me by more than 2-1.

Here's the biggest of the night:

[harvey lee]

Good you guys got into them as I was in approx the same breakline and depth and had next to no bites and didn't see a fish after 7pm.

Did Borch end up getting anything?

The ones I did cacth were the 12" model and what I saw Borch and Scoot catch were also very small.

How about you guys, alot of the dinky stuff?

[Borch]

I think they had their best bite after I packed up and stopped by to say so long. Ended sticking around another 45 minutes so I could at least watch some fish being caught. I felt useful though as they definitely needed a spotter in that house.

It funny how one pod of fish will bite while another will just look at you at best just 30 feet apart. But that's fishing.

Nice job guys!

[harvey lee]

Yes, it seems like the channels hang around one hole like the crappies do.

At least the fish were biting. Seems the bigger ones didn't want to play.

Brian A is a channel catfishing machine it seems. The last time I was up we caught fish but not like Brian's house.

[DTro]

We had our fair share of dinks, but several nicer ones mixed in.

[harvey lee]

Good to hear that someone caught a few better ones.

[Surreal Deal]

Harvey, DTRO, Aanderud, Borch - Nice to meet you guys on Saturday.

The structure really does come into play out there. Thank you Aanderud for taking the time to show me your GPS and the structure below us - I wish I had taken your advice and moved closer to the break. At the time I thought we weren't that far off and between my 68 year old father in law and my six year old son I figured we were close enough and it didn't warrant picking up and dragging everything again.

As it turned out that was an unwise choice - we only got two little ones (although we missed a few). The bites we did get they really popped them. I used a chicken liver about 1-2' off the bottom, I started my son rigged with a cut fathead about 6' off the bottom (eventually switched him to chicken liver) and my father in law stubbornly stuck with a live fathead about 1' off the bottom, hoping to get a walleye.

All in all we had a blast, didn't have too much trouble getting on or off the lake (That last 50 yards or so were a no-go with the minivan, we had to unload and drag). Some fellow also stopped and lent a hand when we were leaving, not sure if he was an HSO guy or not. I wasn't counting on any help if I got stuck so thus I didn't take any stupid risks; but it was nice all the same to know that there are some neighborly folks out there willing to stop and help, just in case I had gotten hung up bad.

Horseshoe is a little too far away to become one of our regular lakes - more like a once in a season trip. I think that next year we'll try a little earlier in the season - and hopefully have some electronics by then so that we're a little more self-sufficient.

Thanks guys!

[harvey lee]

Nice meeting you.

[Surreal Deal]

Nice meeting you as well, Harvey! I hope that you didn't think we were set up too close to you.

I'm sure we looked like quite a motley assortment, all three generations of us. Thanks to whichever one of you it was who offered the help punching the holes, my jiffy made it through with some room to spare (It only looked close because of the ice chip mound)

Although we didn't have any electronics, my father in-law was able to accurately gauge when the bite started. "They must be biting," he said. "How do you know?" I asked. "Those guys over there have stopped talking."

What a riot.

[DTro]

Nice meeting you too Surreal.

Even though we had 4 bobbers going, it still made a BIG difference using electronics. You could see where the fish were coming from and then suspend the bait just above them, plus you would have a fair warning right before the bobber “twitched”.

Plus we couldn’t catch them unless we used the 5ft zoom on the LX-5. Tried the 10ft and it didn’t work. Had to use 5ft. (I’m positive it really didn’t matter, but you don’t mess with success).

As the night got later, we noticed more activity on the bottom, so then we adjusted our bobber stops and sure enough we started getting them again.

As far as a gauge, if you heard laughter coming from our house we had a fish on.

[Borch]

Nice touching base Surreal. Any trip with 3 generations is a success in my book.

[NELS-BELLS]

Always fun when you can call a 30+ fish night a "slower bite"

Every time we tried to leave we would get a flurry and have to stay another 15 min.

Nice meeting a couple of you out there tonight as well.

Once again, Ice Cat Aanderud put on a clinic outfishing me by more than 2-1.

Here's the biggest of the night:

Hey dtro -

Not to change the subject but what kind of video camera where you using? It seems to work pretty good.

[DTro]

Flip Video

It's actually much better on my PC, but gets compressed when processing for YouTube or Photobucket.

Pretty impressed with the little thing.

[aanderud]

Hey Surreal, was good to meet you out there. Also met up with Ice Rube (i think that was his name).

I will probably try to get out there another time or two this year. I can't say that I'm a complete addict -- only up there 2 weeks out of three. If I was completely out of control I'd have a sleeper on the lake and quit my job

[harvey lee]

Nice meeting you as well, Harvey! I hope that you didn't think we were set up too close to you.

I'm sure we looked like quite a motley assortment, all three generations of us. Thanks to whichever one of you it was who offered the help punching the holes, my jiffy made it through with some room to spare (It only looked close because of the ice chip mound)

Although we didn't have any electronics, my father in-law was able to accurately gauge when the bite started. "They must be biting," he said. "How do you know?" I asked. "Those guys over there have stopped talking."

What a riot.

Yes I had offered to cut some holes for you as the ice was thick and it looked like you may have run out of flighting.

Good to hear you had a good time. I wish I had know that you did not have a flasher as I had an extra along you would have been welcome to borrow.

[riverrat56]

If I was completely out of control I'd have a sleeper on the lake and quit my job

Man now theres an idea...

[Surreal Deal]

Yes I had offered to cut some holes for you as the ice was thick and it looked like you may have run out of flighting.

Good to hear you had a good time. I wish I had know that you did not have a flasher as I had an extra along you would have been welcome to borrow.

That's nice of you, Harvey.

Re: the auger, I had enough flighting to get the job done, but I struggled a little on our last hole because I messed with the carburetor setting about midway through and she didn't like it. After I switched back I was able to punch through OK. I couldn't remember if it was you or the other gentleman that you were talking to at the time who had offered a hand. Either way thank you!

Re: the flasher, thanks for saying that but I would have politely declined. I get a little nervous borrowing high buck items from folks.

Hopefully next season I will have a new toy. The question is whether it will be a flasher or a handheld GPS with lakemaps. But I believe that is already the topic of another thread...