Any gar sightings lately?

Just wondering if anyone’s having any luck with the flatheads, or anything else interesting that you’ve seen. The catfish forum is almost empty, let’s keep it going.

I saw a dead gar floating in Bloomington yesterday. I’ve been fishing some spots in the Bloomington/Savage area and have been catching a few flats. I’ve been going out for just a couple hours after dark. The flatheads have been small but the channels have all been 10+ lb. I’m still searching for the monster flats. We’re using chubs caught out of Minnehaha Creek. I’m glad I’d started catching my own bait because it’s a lot cheaper and the bait is so much livelier. I just pull up to the creek and within a couple casts I’ve got a bucket of large chubs. I should have been doing this for years. We should get out tomorrow. Good luck! Vern

I was out saturday night looking for flats of walleye.I fished in front of a large granite shelf that rose out of about 20 feet of water.near the top of the shelf there is a large shallow area only about a foot deep.You could see wakes created by fish.At first I just assumed that they were carp because I wasn’t catching anything.(I always assume this if I am not catching anything)But then one came straight out of the water like a cruise missile out of a submarine.It was a gar.They must have been feeding on the minnows in the shallows.

The flathead bite has slowed in my area,and the walleyes are not on the bite just yet.

Vern,were you getting the channels on your live chubs?We haven’t seen that many channels upstream lately and certainly not very many in that size range.Usually they come quite big in the fall.Of course we have been fishing mostly the slower water for flats.

Hey Vern, how do you catch those chubs? Small hook and worm? fished at mid depth, bottom or surface? I would like to utilize some chubs myself but have never caught one.

Interesting experience fishhead, I’ve seen gar on surface before but never one jump out like you described. Watch out for those teeth! I saw an awesome sight a few weeks ago in the backwaters of the Miss., a school of probably 15 or 20 white bass corraling minnows up into the shallows and then violently ripping into them, you should have seen the water spray… Needless to say we caught many of them, several in the 1 to 2 pound range. What a blast.

Hey! We’ve been catching the channels on those big live chubs. Those are some nice bonus fish. I’m thinking about trying some cut-bait to see how many channels we can actually get out of those spots. We’re fishing mostly deeper holes with wood. Minnehaha Creek is just inches deep right now and the chubs are in the 2-3 foot spots. We’re catching them on slip bobber rigs and Genz jigs tipped with a piece of bread. I’ve always wondered how long they’ll stay in the creek and if they’ll head to the river or just die when it freezes. We’re about 10 miles upstream of Minnehaha Falls and the river. We’re heading up to the Rainy River for some sturgeon action in a couple weeks. Anyone else ever done that? We had a blast last year, but no real monsters. Later – Vern

Hey Catdad! I’m not sure exactly when we’re going up but we’re shooting for the 2nd or 3rd weekend in October. We’ll probably leave on a Thursday. It would be great to hook up. We’ve been staying at the Budget Host Inn in Intl. Falls but we might try somewhere else this time. We were using crawlers, maybe 3 or 4 on the hook. The action was great last fall but the fish were pretty small. We were set up on the lip of some 20-25 foot holes. Are you fishing the holes or some other spots? Besides bait, do you have any ideas on getting bigger fish? I’ll let you know in a week or so when we’re going. Thanks a lot – Vern

I recently got invited on a trip to the Rainy for the same weekends you stated. I’ve never been up there and after reading your post I’m guessing I’m going to be underpowered as far as a rod. I do have a 10 ft. surf rod spooled with 50# line.But it doesn’t get much use. I thought I was going for Walleyes and Now I find out about 50#+ Sturgeon. What I’m saying is Help! I need to find out what to expect. Any advice on a trip to the Rainy would be greatly apprieciated. Rat13

Thanks for the info Catdad! I’ll give the nylon trick a try. You mentioned that you use goldeye and shad while most people use crawlers. Are you using cut-bait by itself or just adding cut-bait to your crawler rigs like you recommended? You can really use a lot of crawlers up here, especially when the suckers are biting. We went thru about 500 in a day and a half. I can’t wait to get into some walleyes also. Thanks, Vern

Oops, I guess you said mooneye not goldeye.

Thanks Catdad! I’m going to try some of your ideas this time. Sounds like a great way to keep the suckers from stealing all the bait. Maybe we’ll get some pigs this time with the larger presentation. I was surprised at how many small sturgeon we caught last year. It’s nice to know that the sturgeon population is in pretty good shape. Vern

Wow Catdad you really know how to catch big fish of all types, those are some real giants you’re talking about. I’ve caught some small sturgeon in the St. Croix north of Taylor’s Falls; there seems to be a large population there, many small ones and some insanely large fish. You’ll always know when you have a sturgeon on the line, because if you hook one it will jump in the first few seconds of the fight. In my opinion, the sturgeon should be Minnesota’s state fish.

hey vern thanks for the tips on catching chubs, I’m gonna try it out.

I didn’t see any gar today but I did seeabout 2 dozen carp coraling baitfish against the shore line.I tossed a a jig into the fray and caught about 6 carp in 20 minutes.One more interesting thing was that a 5lb channel went airborne right over the whole school.It all ended abrubtly right before the storm hit.

You would think that with all the fish that I have seen in the air, one would just drop right in the boat!

Last night I was spooled 3 times while pitching jigs for walleyes on a gravel bar.I don’t know what kind of cat they were but they sure were hungry!

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen carp chasing baitfish. Maybe I just didn’t want to admit it, but they can act like a gamefish from time to time.

There used to be a post (joke) fromt the Iowa tourism bureau:

“Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis flyrod, but don’t be disappointed when a flathead breaks it off at the handle.”

No matter what I’m after, I have one rule when fishing waters known for big cats: Heavy is the way to go. I’d rather catch 1/2 as many crappies and land that 12lb forktail than never know what was on the other end of my ultralight.