Cattin the Chain 2013

[dudewheresmyboat]

looking to take the woman out for the first time. How is travel conditions off road? (will have 4x4 of course) I'd like to get away from the crowds and hopefully have her hook up with her first cat through the ice. Thanks!

[Rick G]

Travel is ok as long as you have a 4wd. There are places with more than a foot of snow and there are places with 6-7in, just have to watch out for the drifted in areas.

[pigeonator]

i went out to this lake thanks to a friend who live on the lake, i thought i was on some hot and heavy crappie action, but upon reeling in a medium 15" cat..cool. non stop catting action and i love it. not big cat eater but do like the cats from a restraunt call JJ's fish.

[that_guy]

I'm going for the first time tomorrow. I'm pretty excited! I'll try to actually take pictures. If I don't, I'll let you all know how it went!

[Rick G]

Made it out to the lakes today. Started on the crappie pond and didn't find much for size, so after 4hrs of subpar fishing we decided to head over to the area I have my wheelhouse in. Started punching holes up and down a break from 22-32ft of water. Marked the first pod of fish almost right away. Started catching crappies and a cat here and there. By 5pm I had pretty much non stop action just not all catfish. By 7 pm the bulk of the fish had moved out of our area. I'm sure I could have found thenm again but it's pretty tough walking around with all the snow on the lake . Minnow heads on a glow red spoon turned almost all the fish today, only got a couple cats on the liver.

Apon pulling up to my house this afternoon I saw a lot of tracks going around the house, I said "oh no someone tried to get in". Appon further inspection I found none of the tracks to be human, My "pet" otter has been hanging around my hose again This thing has circled my house so many times since it snowed it has a path packed down so it looked like a man had been walking around the house. The odd thing is that none of the other houses in the area have been visited by the critter, just mine I feel special to have a watch otter guarding my spot while I'm not there

[pigeonator]

today i was fishing the bend about 40-50ft deep, didn't catch anything but 1 crappie. Fishing was slow for me, the snow is 12" deep and fishing was slow. I saw a few guys in a green flip over, im guessing there not catching anything too as they were hole hopping. good luck catching cats.

[aanderud]

You'll need 4x4 or a snowmobile to get around out there if you're going off the beaten path at all. We went to a spot that had no truck traffic and only a few snowmobiled had been through there. Glad we brought the sled up. Good action on red glow hooks. Nothing on minnows, and red outfished green 3 to 1. Ended up with over 30 fish. After we all switched to red it was steady action for 1.5 hours until we left. Still biting at 8 when we called it. I should get a sleeper out there maybe. As it is, didn't get home til 10 pm which is plenty late for my 5 year old

[wooduck26]

You'll need 4x4 or a snowmobile to get around out there if you're going off the beaten path at all.

So walking with a small flip over would not be an easy task? The spot I have in mind to try is going to be about a 1/3 mile walk.... Hmmmm.

[DTro]

Done that walk a few times in as much snow or more with a large house, so it can be done. I sure wouldn't change my plans if I had to walk, but... its much easier with a snowmobile.

I was quite surprised by how much snow is up there.

[Horseshoe_Don]

For those venturing to the meth hole area, avoid the deep water. This is the time of the year they start leaving the deepest part of the meth hole. Look for them in water from 16 to 22 feet south of the meth hole. The bite can be tough this time of the year but you will find numbers. It wont be long and they will leave the area altogether with spring coming. Went over the area on march 24 2012 in my boat and they were gone. They were already under 10 feet by then.

Good Luck

Don (the gimp)

[DTro]

Yep, good tip Don, the school we've been chasing the past several weeks has pushed shallower.

[DTro]

oh and Brian forgot to mention that the little guy outfished both of us again last night, and the old man has a new nickname of Mr Misses (hoosket).

I couldn't believe how much a difference the red over green made. It usually doesn't matter all that much, just as long as it glows, but red was a clear winner.

[Rick G]

Don, that is a good point you made about the fish starting to move. We had our best action in 24-26ft with some of the better fish coming in at the 15ft mark. Like DTro said, glow red was the winner yesterday, I only wished that I remembered to bring a tub of liver with I won't be forgeting it today

Misses aanderud....lol, I like it

[Pikestabber77]

Is there any cat action durin the day out there?

[Rick G]

Is there any cat action durin the day out there?

Yes there is a daytime bite, they are a bit more active in the evening though. The trick is to find a good school.

[my4x4yj]

Mr. Rick G sir are you going to be out on the chain this afternoon and able to meet myself and my son and give a couple first time catfish hunters some tips?

[Rick G]

Mr. Rick G sir are you going to be out on the chain this afternoon and able to meet myself and my son and give a couple first time catfish hunters some tips?

Sorry, I didn't get to read this till now. I think I was already on the lake when you posted this. If you would like to come back up just give me a little more heads up and I sure will do my best to help you out.

The bite for the cats was pretty poor on my end of the lake. I got two in and lost a few others,graphed quite a few but they were tight liped. The thing that saved the day was the crappies, they bit pretty good for just about everyone I talked with Red glow spoons were the hot jig, I used a 1/8 Northland forage minnow and the Lindy Rattlin' Flyer to get all my fish. All I can say is I'm gratefull for active crappies on the occasions when the cats won't bite

[dan z]

Thanks Rick! Even though we only caught 2 channels it was enough to say I'm hooked! The crappies weren't to bad either.

[fishermoe14]

It was nice to meet you Rick. We caught 3 total tonight. Seem to have hit the hot spot, guys were poppin holes 10 feet away from our shack...

[Rick G]

It was nice to meet you Rick. We caught 3 total tonight. Seem to have hit the hot spot, guys were poppin holes 10 feet away from our shack...

Being you brought this up... We had some problems with others too

My buddie had his tip up run over by a snowmobile, I almost had my Vexilar ran over by a truck All this I could handle, it's when the two guys came pulling up to us at prime time and set up 15ft from my house. I don't realy care soo much about the distance, it's the fact that they were drunk and verry loud. This was it, I had enough of the carp, I packed it up and headed in. While on the way back to the access we were doing 20-25mph when here comes the two guys that had set up right next to me doing 50+, he blew right past us.

I don't usaly wish bad things happen to anyone, but theese guys I hoped got pulled over or ended up in the ditch

I'm done, time to get off my soapbox . Headed back to the lake right now to se if I can get in to some walleyes before the front comes through this morning.

[wooduck26]

My Buddy and I hit the ice yesterday with epic results! I had a spot in mind that I thought would produce, and we weren't disappointed! This was a spot that wasn't necessarily a deep hole, but deep in relation to the surrounding area. We knew venturing on to the river would have it's dangers an we took a few precautions that we hoped would we would never have to use. I brought my 50ft anchor rope with and tied it to ourselves, and walked as far as apart as we could. after getting to our spot without incident I started drilling holes, and shockingly found good ice, but never got too comfortable with the area, I drilled about a half dozen holes, almost all of which my buddy marked fish in so we picked the best one and set up shop. The first fish didn't come for about 10 minutes I have to admit I was actually getting a bit concerned. The first 3 fish came on a red Frosty and I was down 3-0. I had a yellow Frosty spoon on with a glow red eye, and I was not doing well, I switched to Red and quickly caught up! The action was non-stop with a tornado of fish under us for the next several hours with constant fish being put on the ice. We switched baits a few times here and there, but Red was the clear winner up until about 9pm, I then switched to a glow white Demon, (I think it was a Demon, look close at the pic) and that was the ticket. Around 9:30ish the school started to dwindle, they moved lower in the water column, and became a bit tight lipped. We stayed for about another hour despite my buddy having to work in the morning, then called it a day and began the fun walk back to the truck. We ended the day with 139 Cats through the hole, for 2 guys! This is #139 ( see that white/red bait)

What an awesome day!

[DTro]

Sweet someone finally took the initiative to get adventurous and get away from the crowd! That bite sure reminds me of the first couple of nights Brian and I punched the first holes at the spot we’ve now been to several times. Each time the total caught has dropped off a bit though.

All year we’ve been eyeballing a spot that looks awesome and there has not been anyone there yet, but we just keep driving past it. Your report makes me want to try it now.

I really think finding those unpressured fish does make a difference. Once you find them you can have some fun for a while and then it seems like they wise up to your ways.

Sounds like you had a great time. I wonder if you will be back??

[TruthWalleyes]

Wow woodduck. That is one heck of a fish total! Nice job!

[aanderud]

Nice work, Dave! That is an epic night! I imagine that your buddy didn't mind being a little tired at work today after that kind of night.

Good to hear that someone is putting the hammer down late in the season like this! Were you using minnows or liver?

[wooduck26]

We had fatheads (a few left over shiner heads were used also ) and livers.... I like minnows better, them livers a pain...

[lakeshoremunster]

My very first time out there was this last saturday. My group decided to get out there in the am and the first few holes I drilled we marked some fish so we decided to stay and fish. We started the day on a good note but it went south pretty fast. Total catch for the day was 3 crappies, one rock bass, one eye and one cat. The cats did move in at night and we had a few nibblers but were never able to set the hook on them, I lost the first cat I set the hook on guess the liver was too big because the cat was on for a short while but the line went limp. Might be willing to come out that way again this weekend depending on the weather.

If any of you want to meet up out there just give me a shout out.

[Rick G]

Had a pretty decent walleye bite from 7am till around 10:30ish then things went down hill fast.

The plan was to hit the "can't miss" spot for cats after lunch. Appon reading Wooduck26's post I decided a change of location was in order. We finshed our burgers and called around to procure a snowmobile for the day.

Got to our first spot that bottomed out at almost 20ft, didn't mark anything except bottom huggers. Spot number two was a little deeper and had a bit more for activity. Since this spot was somewhat out of the wind and did show some promise we decided to set up camp here.

We were getting some ok sized schools coming in but for the most part the fish were pretty tight liped durring the day. Around 5pm things changed, fish were stacked half way up the water colom, and quite a few turned into biters. I know we didnt do anywhere near as good as wooduck did, but still must have gotten 40-50. If it hadn't been for wooducks huge numbers post I would have just gone back to the smae old spot. I guess it does pay to venture out to new locations once in a while

[aanderud]

Sounds like they're still on up there, just gotta find fish that haven't been staring at glow jigs and minnow heads for 3 the better part of 3 months now.

If I was coming up there this weekend, I've got a couple new holes I'd want to give a shot. But unfortunately I think I'm trying somewhere new on or near the mississippi backwaters Saturday instead. We'll see what comes of it.

[wooduck26]

We hit a nice spot with some current, and it was a tough bite! Last time we fished there it was good, not so much tonight. Ended.with about 25-30,for 2 guys, wich OS still a fun night....sorry for the auto correct dump.....my phone loves to do that,.... You get the drift....

[Rick G]

Made it back out to the lake again today. Ended up catching a few cats even though they were not the intended target. We were in the same location that we got all the crappies last weekend, the crappies were still there and so were a bunch of cats. The crappies were more bottom oriented and the bulk of the cats came in suspended. We ended up getting 21 cats, a couple walleyes, 15 or so crappies and I got one big fat rock bass Glow blue was the hands down winner, they wouldn't even come upto the red or green tonight.

Snow is getting to be an isue, travel was a little tougher with the new snow we got, I hope we dont get any more before I have to pull the wheel house off.