When it comes to ice fishing in MN, it is tough to argue that the Walleye truly is king. Ask 10 people what they are chasing and its a good chance that 8 of them will say walleye and really you cannot blame them, especially when it comes to the table, walleye is fantastic, but for myself personally though, I’ve decided to think outside the walleye and target a less common species known as the Channel Catfish.
Huh? Did he just say Catfish? When I tell people this, I get a lot of mixed reactions. Everything from, “hey that’s cool”, to “well,why would you do that?”. For the naysayers, this is what I tell them. When I go out on the ice, I first and foremost want to have fun, second I want to catch 
some fish, third I like a fish that will challenge my gear, and lastly, if I want to take home a meal I would like a fish that will be fit for the table. Well, Catfish fulfill all my requirements for fishing, they are like the EHarmony of fish for me. Based on the fact that the past few trips we have averaged 25 fish per outing (with totals sometimes as many as 50 or 60) the fight is second to none. and often compared to the Lake Trout, plus add in the fact that they actually taste good, I would ask, why WOULDN’T you fish for them?
So how do you get started? It’s actually quite easy. If you already have walleye gear, you are set. No special gear required. Next you will need to find a body of water that holds a nice population of Cats. Some of the more popular cat waters in the area include the St Croix River, Sauk River Chain of Lakes, Mississippi River, Zumbro and the Petenwell flowages. But don’t limit yourself to those waters only, a lot of Metro area lakes and ponds have been stocked with plentiful Cats too by the FIN program and it is an overlooked fishery that is bound to catch on sooner or later in the metro area. Check out this link for more info. Metro Cat Waters
You’ve found a likely body of water, now what? Well this is probably the hardest part of the equation….actually finding the fish. When looking at a body of water for cats, there are three areas I key on; holes with sharp breaks, neck down area or narrows, and areas with current. These types of areas seem to attract hungry cats.
I like to classify cats in 2 categories, roamers and schoolers. The roamers by definition are harder to stay on top of, but are usually a lot bigger than the schoolers. More times than not we will sacrifice the quality size roamers and search for a school to sit on top of and have fun with for a few hours. Basically all this takes is drilling a bunch of holes and dropping a flasher down. If the fish are there you will know right away. A couple of tools that I’ve recently discovered help quite a bit in this search are the Ice Hogger Auger Shroud and the Humminbird Ice-55 flasher. Here is how I use these to help in my search. With one guy drilling CLEAN holes with the Hogger, the other guy can follow efficiently with a wide beam flasher set on automatic mode and a baited rod and with the Hogger, no scooping slush is needed, just drill, plop, drill, plop, drill, plop. Sooner or later you find the school and it’s game on! We use this tactic effectively on waters with a high density cat population, but on some of the smaller stocked lakes, you might need to do a little more searching, and or waiting for the “roamers” to come through as they might not be schooled up quite as tight. A Marcum or other underwater camera will also aid in locating these fish in clearer bodies of water.
I can’t stress enough how important a flasher is staying on a consistent bite. These cats really like to swim all over the water column. Up, down, up, down. The school can be high, the school can be low, and heck they can even move up or down as the hours go by. Flasher……don’t leave home without it.
After we’ve found the school we will bait up with single hook glow jig tipped with either half a minnow or a small piece of chicken liver and held above the school with a venom or ice buster foam bobber. Because the cats are a finicky biter, we will not use a split shot and the bobber is adjusted to near neutral buoyancy. As soon as you see that bobber twitch you set the hook. You will discover the reason we use a single jig hook after catching several cats yourself. The hook is almost always hooked in their tough lips and a standard treble hook that you find on some jigs or spoons is really difficult to dislodge and not only are you hurting the fish, you will end up destroying a lot of your lures.
Take a moment to check out the video attached to this article that will maybe help out a little more showing what we do and if you are looking for a change of pace, I say give it a try, you might just like it, and oh like I mentioned earlier on, they also taste good! Good Luck and please practice selective harvest.
By Darren (dTro) Troseth