Quick North Minneapolis report

My buddy Geo and I launched out of Boom Island (excellent launch facilities BTW) about 6PM last night and got back to the ramp about 11PM.

Fiddler channels could be caught all night at various different spots. We had the best luck setting up in deeper water around pylons, snags, etc. Nice view of the Minneapolis skyline, not much traffic, and an overall nice night to be out. We had the most fish caught under the new Lowry Ave. bridge fishing around the construction platforms. All fish came on Secret Seven, but we did have some bites on cutbait as well. Probably about 25-30 fish total (we stopped counting) and a couple doubles as well.

Biggest fish of the night was a 4-5lb channel caught by me (no picture) and a few bigger ones came unbuttoned while reeling in. I really don’t think this stretch gets much cattin’ pressure, except by shore fisherpeople.

That one fish pic looks like a perfect eater size…

And you’re right. theres generally little fishing pressure at all in that stretch to begin with, but moreso for cats. There are landings at 694, Camden and Boom Island with extensive shallow stretches between them (at least from Camden upstream)… so there are several stretches of river that get almost no pressure at all.

Used to catch lots of bass and walleyes on that stretch back in the day. Plenty of channel cats on cut sucker to.

It’s always a good night when you stop counting your catch!

Did you go through the River Rats ski show???

Went through right before it, and left after it was done. Tons of people were lining the West shore by the Broadway bridge. We were tempted to give the ramp a try, but decided to pass

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We were tempted to give the ramp a try, but decided to pass

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LOL, that would have been interesting. We were down there for the show last night.

Last night as in Saturday or Sunday? If it was Saturday, you probably saw me go past. 14′ Northwoods with a 35 Evinrude on the back. Right around 6PM or so. Kinda creepy having a whole crowd of people just stare as you go past..

Sunday night.

You should have stuck around for the show. This contraption was pretty cool!!!

Looks like a cool background. We stopped counting too. Too bad Friday made me too tired to fish Saturday.

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With the amount of small to medium channels hanging around you’d think there would be a few jumbos? I have yet to see one though.

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This one came out of that stretch. That’s the water works in the background.

Don’t give up on that stretch of water. It is the home of the Minnesota state record channel cat. Here is some info on it from some research I did at the MN DNR office that handles state record fish:

The information on this record is kind of sketchy. The only thing I found in the file was a Field & Stream Sixty-Fifth Annual Fishing Contest Certificate of Award. The certificate states, “This is to certify that Terrence Fussy, Minneapolis, Minnesota on the date inscribed below did hook and successfully land a Channel Catfish which has been weighed and measured, and a true record thereof duly entered in the official register of the Field & Stream Annual Fishing Contest. The information shown on the certificate is: Date – February 16, 1975; Weight – 38 pounds; Length – 3 feet 8 inches; Class – Unrestricted Line Test. There is a handwritten note on the certificate that says: Miss River, northern Mpls, Feb 14, 75.

That makes it a 44 inch channel cat. That would be a big channel cat – so keep fishing that stretch of water it has produced in the past. I got a call from a guy who knows Terrence Fussy and he told me that Terrence was playing hookey from school that day and he and some friends were fishing for carp by the Lowry Ave Bridge using corn for bait. Terrence hooked into this big channel cat and took it home to show everybody. He also entered it in the Field and Stream Fishing Contest and was eventually also given the MN State Record for Channel Cats.

44″ channel on corn. Unreal.

I’m buying stock in Green Giant.

Here’s another I caught in that same spot in March one year. I have spent hundreds of hours shore fishing this stretch, and these are probably the biggest 2 I’ve caught up there:

I’d buy it was taken on corn in the middle of winter. You dudes with your magical cat river…

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I’d buy it was taken on corn in the middle of winter. You dudes with your magical cat river…

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Yep! We’re petitioning to rename the Miss to “Magicat River”. Flatties that chase cranks in the dead of winter. Vegetarian channels. And the elusive Mystical Blue Catfish.

Yeah, it’s a crazy world up here.

So DFresh, where did you really catch that pig? That’s gotta be one of the biggest channels I’ve ever seen outside the Cabella’s fish tanks! It’s a freakin PIG!

It DID hit during a thunderstorm (note the splashes in the water). Maybe it travelled down a bolt of lightening with a divine mission to eat corn?