Colder weather

[wall_eye_assasin]

With this colder weather moving in do you think it will hurt the catfishing or get those cats hungry for winter. I hope they are getting hungry. We are headed up to Fargo for one night and Drayton the next. Any reports on the catfishing the last couple of days during this cold spell. Thanks in advance...............Kirk

[Scoot]

I don't have any reports, but I expect the fishing to be tough. Lots of rain and cold temps might spell trouble...

Good luck and don't let my dooms day report stop you! Go get 'em!!!

[Ed Carlson]

Heavy run off from recent rains will most certainly muddy up the rivers. But fall is headed to colder temps in the air and in the water, so the good news is the water clears quicker in the fall.

Colder waters settles suspended sediments more quickly than warm waters, so things heal up and clear up quicker.

Make no mistake, the fish are hungry and eager to fatten up for winter. Larger live baits on bottom produce better in turbid waters. As it clears, think more action, as in bulked up jigs and minnow bait style larger crankbaits. The clearer it gets, the more prone I am to reach for a crankbait, and I like to run them very.....very...slowly, and very near shoreline structure.

Keep them mud boots handy, you will need them. Fall fishing is opportunistic and it's trophy time for sure.

The more you go, the better you will do. Keep an eye on things on the USGS site, it helps.

[wall_eye_assasin]

Thank you Scoot and Ed as usual for your imput and great knowledge of that river. We arrived up to the Fargo/Moorehead area and fished with John form JK Cats. We had a great time but the river had gone up two feet from the day before, we ended up with eight nice channel cats with a 9lb being the biggest. We than went up to Grand Forks the next morning with Brad Durick and caught three cats with a nice 32.50 being the biggest. We loaded up and went to Drayton and it turned out to be a great day. The weather was perfect and the cats wanted frogs. We ended up catching 20 nice fat channel cats that were 36, 35, 34, 34.25, 32.5(3) 32(3), 31, and the rest were around 28 and 29". I had another eight channels cats on and they had the rod bent so hard I could barely get the rod out of the holder, I got about five or six good reels on them and they got off. Brad said it was a differnt bite up there this year and I seen it. In Grand Forks we had probably 20 or more hits but no takers. The weather was great and the company was also. I love that Red river and can't wait to get up there again soon................Kirk