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Cattin the Chain 2012


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Thanks for the report TG. I'm feeling a bit left out of the party -- as I have yet to catch a party crappie up there this year. I don't know what it is about them but they won't bite for me (or I can't hook em).

For your maiden voyage, sounds like you did quite well. Sounds like the typical midyear slowdown is in full force on the meth hole. Heading out today, trying something different.

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hey fish-i wish i was going back up today-would love the company-but i have to work mad i prolly won't make it back up that way for at least a week or two.

tg

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I hit the meth hole today in hopes of catching some channels and that worked out great.

I started fishing about 2:45 and within 10 minutes, I iced a 27" channel, the biggest through the ice I have ever caught.

I jigged a Lindy red rattlin flyer with a minnow head and part of the body with the guts hanging out. The other line I set 3ft of the bottom with a venom bobber set so any little touch would send it down. My bobber line had a red glow demon in size 6 with a minnow head and guts on that hook.

Well, for the first 2 hours nothing would touch my deadstick with the bobber. But my jigging rod did land some nice fish all going over 20 inches along with 3 crappie about 10-11 inches.

About 5pm, I could not ice a cat with the jigging rod but the bobber kept going under. That last for about 45 minutes and then back to the jigging rod and the bobber rod went dead again.

Every fish but the 27 would barely move the tip of the rod on my Mitchell meatstick. So, due to the fact I was missing more than I was icing, I switched to a Thorne rod with a st croix spring bobber on it. That helped a bit but not much as they bite so light. I know I landed 3 cats that were hooked in the whisker due to the fact I hooked them while jigging.

All the cats I iced were above 20" during the daylight hours and after the sun set, everything was under 20".

For the majority of the time on the ice. if I saw a mark, I would jig to get it to come up and then you had to let it sit as still as possible. If you moved the bait at all, the fish went back to the bottom. I never caught a cat that was suspended as all came up from the bottom that were caught.

There were times when I had 4-7 ft of solid fish on the screen.

Overall, I caught 29 channels and 6 crappie. So not a bad 3.5 hours at all for a day with finicky biting fish.

It was a wierd time fishing as they were so finicky and the size difference during the light and then all small fish after sunset.

Overall, I worked hard at icing these fish but it was fun. Fighting the 27 on my meatstick with 4# test was a chore also. man did I lighten up the drag as I was not sure what I had hooked and I really wanted to at least see the fish.

Ice conditions were not to bad. I took my wheeler and went on the lake at the access south of the Hwy 22 bridge. Went I went west on the lake and then turned to the north around the point I was a bit concerned as I could see the ice in that area had busted up and di not look that deep. I stopped and rilled a few holes and the ice was approx 7.5 inches. By the Meth hole, I drille only 3 holes in 32fow and the ice was 10" at the most. Talked to another feller on the way to the Meth hole area and he said he has about 7.5 inches where he was. We sure could use more ice even for the wheeler.

Maybe back tomorrow.

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Great report, I figured with the front coming in they would be snapping. It sure is nice when things work out just right grin. Congrats on that 27in. They sure are fun when they get to be that big grin

I wonder how aanderud and DTro faired? I heard slow at 430ish, I sure hope it picked up for them.

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Nice work, Tom! Glad you got into them. Those bigger fish are a blast, especially on ultralight gear like a meatstick with 4 lb. I tend to go to 6 lb just because I hate losing fish. I have a hard enough time hooking them, need to get every one of those in!

Slow was the word where we were. There were 3 houses in our area with a total of 6 guys. The total was around 18 catfish when all was said and done, plus some bonus crappies. Very light biting. We had fish under us all night long, other than the last 30 minutes or so.

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yeah it was slow for sure for us, but the fish we did catch were very nice.

I was skunked at one point in the night and had enough so I went hole hopping in the dark. Found an active hole and pulled 5 all over 21" in about an hour or so. That was the most action for me all night....

Got to meet Fishuhalik and Carmike though, that was worth the trip itself. Always fun to meet fellow net friends on the ice.

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Yeah, it was nice to meet you guys. Bummer we couldn't bring more fish in, but that just means there's more dumb ones for us to catch next time, right?!? smile

I'm thinking of heading back out Monday if anyone's interested...

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nice to meet you guys too! i still had a ball. it's always a good time when you have some adele to listen too! laugh

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Thanks Brian. Yes the light gear is tougher at times to ice the better fish but I just loosen my drag so they can run if needed. I was worried about breaking the line or losing a fish but I guess I got lucky yesterday as I did not lose 1.

Think next week I am going to make another run up there but maybe for 5-6 hours since it is a bit of a drive.

I have the luxury of going during the week so I do not have to be concerned about all the weekend traffic and the added noise on the ice.

I would like to see a few more inches of ice as the 7.5 spots were somewhat of a concern with the wheeler.

I use the landing on Hwy 22 south of the bridge about a mile.

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i was out last night i moved away from where everyone was drilling holes around the meth hole still in 37-38 fow. i ended up leaving around 8:30 and cought around 16-17 cats my self and buddy caught 4-5 and also got some bounes fish. I had little frosty jigs with live crappie minnow seemed to work the best for me last night and every fish that was got was 2-6 feet of the bottom. I just got a new hand held with lake map chip im thinking about trying some new spots out next few days i have marked that look pretty good.ill be in clam thermal..

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i was out last night i moved away from where everyone was drilling holes around the meth hole still in 37-38 fow. i ended up leaving around 8:30 and cought around 16-17 cats my self and buddy caught 4-5 and also got some bounes fish. I had little frosty jigs with live crappie minnow seemed to work the best for me last night and every fish that was got was 2-6 feet of the bottom. I just got a new hand held with lake map chip im thinking about trying some new spots out next few days i have marked that look pretty good.ill be in clam thermal..
dang it, i knew we shoulda tried some live minners last night. i bet we had at least 20 lookers for every bite
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My dad did try a live one, though it was a fathead, not a crappie minnow. It didn't work for him, but maybe the smaller one would've been the ticket.

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I threw the kitchen sink at the fish tonight but could not get them to bite to save my life. I had fish under my bobber at least 90% of the time tonight, hole hopping when there wasn't anything there. The last 1/2 of the night I had 2 or more fish on the sonar at all times, but no takers. It was ridiculous trying to get them to bite. I tried tiny 1/64 oz jigs, 1/8 oz jigs, red glow, green glow, live minnows, dead minnows, minnow halves, full size minnows, fatheads, crappie minnows, tiny bits of minnows...and I got skunked AGAIN. Wow. I did not bring liver. I should have, but I forgot it in the freezer. That might have been the ticket.

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Fishuhaulik, Carmike or for that matter anyone that was out by the small grey wheel house you left a rod there with a line down. Who ever owns it reels with their left hand. I have it and would like to return it to its rightfull owner.

Now for the report. Durring the daylight hours fishing was decent. Got a good mix of sizes (6-24in) and they were fairly aggresive. Soon as dark set in the bite slowed but was consistant with about one hooked every 10-15min. Most of the ones we got after dark were in the 12-15in range. glow red worked better durring the day but after dark glow green seemed to work quite a bit better. Downsizing the bait from fatheads to crappie minnow heads also had better results. Fished from 2pm till just after 8pm and we got 34 between the two of us. I will be back tomorrow for more wink

DTro, that sure was one nice rockie you got wink I'm still yet to get one of them there ( party crappies) this year.

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I finally got them things figured out. They cycle back and forth between the North Side and the South Side every other day. I just need to get back on their schedule.

Or who knows maybe if things pan out you'll see a "Cattin the ???" thread in the near future. wink

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I don't know if you can call what I did fishing. I had one decent sized cat that got off after hitting my transducer before dark, but nothing but rock bass made it topside for me. Got 3 of those party crappies (my first 3 of the season), so it was actually WORSE than a normal skunking. Taking the standard deduction of negative-2 for each of the rock bass left me at -6 for the night. OUCH.

We punched probably 35-45 holes from 24 feet to 46 feet. It looks like cheese out there and it should be obvious (tracks in the snow) to anyone where we were located smile. So at least people know where NOT to go. We didn't just give up and set up over our first set of holes or anything -- we tried to find the best spot we could without dragging the house all the way across the lake. Didn't fish out of the house until at least 6:00 pm after finding a mini-tornado. Darren at least saved face by catching about 1/2 dozen for himself after that point, plus a small walleye.

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Got to lake around noon and had first fish 15min later grin. Picked up quite a few fish durring the mid day hours, had to hole hop and work hard but they were catchable. Never did land on a very big school of fish but had lots of small pods of fish move through the area. Around 5pm the bite slowed and I could not buy a fish. It went like this for almost a hour till it started to snow then the bite picked up to where most of the lookers became biters. The good bite only lasted as long as the snow came down, when the snow stoped so did the fish frown. I lost track of numbers early in the day as there was just too many people in our group . I am sure I got at least 20 cats but more like 25-30 with quite a few other fish mixed in. Nothing real big but several in the 23-25in range for the group.

I might be back out there tomorrow depending on what this wind does. 2-3in of wet heavy snow on the lake,pulling a house has become exhausting tired

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I hit it Wednesday and Thursday and we did alright. Both nights we landed 6 cats, 3 walleyes, and 2 crappies. Kind of strange how both nights were identical, but I was happy we caught a dozen catfish being it was the first time I have ever ice fished for them. Anyways, we lost a ton of fish! Those catfish have some hard mouths! The biggest for us was a 22 in". We were on the side of the meth-hole, away from people for the most part. We were in 31 ft of water. Harvey we were pretty close to you, because I heard you tell someone that you had caught a 27" channel.

It was a fun trip! I would def. do it again. We kept 2 cats and a walleye the 2nd night, just to try them. They were pretty good, but they sure don't die easy. We had them in the bucket for 6+ hours and they were still alive when we got home. Thanks for the catfish cleaning video DTro. I probably won't keep many from now on, but I at least wanted to say I tried it.

We found that a jig/spoon with a minnow head/body hanging off of it was the ticket, and the more still it was the better. They sure bite light!

Brian-

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Well it happened, my first outing of the year where I got skunked on the cats :(In fact I did not get any crappies or walleyes either. The brutal wind was the reason for my terible outing. It must have been blowing at 40+ for some time. I thought I was in the tornado scene from the Wizard of Oz for a while crazy I swear my house took flight with me in it more than once. We started the day with five of us but as soon as we saw the lake three turned for home. As it turned out they were the smart ones. I could not fish anywhere near where I wanted but had to fish where the wind alowed. Checked out quite a few protected areas but none held fish. My only saving grace was a few smallies that came off a small shallow rock hump.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Yeah I had planned on hitting the lake today and reconsidered. I figured it would be brutal out there today and a tough bite.

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Same here. We thought about it really hard, but Mother Nature won. I don't like to hear about people being skunked, but thanks RFM you made my day. grin

What's the snow cover up there lookin like? Enough left for a guy to buzz around the lake with a sled?

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This sounds like a good time. Would like to do some C&R with some cats. Where is this located? Just wondering if it is close enough to me for a day trip. Thanks

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welcome to HSO MMarah. Click on previous pages to get more information about catfishing on horseshoe lake.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

I'm going to horseshoe this weekend with a 4 wheeler, should I go in from 22 or the boat launch?

Do not go from the boat launch. The boat launch is on the river section and there's current there and given our current ice conditions it will not be safe. The 22 access is a safer option.

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my buddy was gonna come down to get his first cats, decided to go up north & get some crappies cuz of the poor reports. sounds like we made the right call!

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