How often do you guys get channel cats on bullheads? I got one last night that grabbed a bully and ripped off line like crazy until I set the hook. I bet it ran nearly 100 feet before I even got the rod out of the holder. Nice channel, too, in the low teen range weight wise. Anyway, how common is this?
I don’t fish bullheads a lot, but I’ve had some great channel cat hits on ‘gills, suckers, and other live baits.
Shawn
Yeah, it happens now and then. The nice thing about bullhead-channel cats is that they are usually decent size and feisty buggers willing to put up a good fight. Didja get a pic of him?
One day I threw out a hook with 2 bullheads on there, wanted to upsize the bait a bit to “guarantee” a big flathead…granted, these were the smaller 5 inchers, not the “barely legal” ones pushing 7 inches, but combined that’s 10 inches of bullhead goodness. It got smoked within just a few minutes, and I thought “this is going to be a huge flathead for sure”. On the contrary, it was a sheepshead. But as with the channel cats that bite bullheads, it was at least a decent size sheepie.
It happens to me a couple times a year or so, but have seen 3 channels come to the boat in the past couple weeks on bullies. Two of them were decent sized and one was only 21″ 
Here’s one my buddy pulled last night on a bullhead.
I’ve had two channels on bullies this year…that’s two more than I’ve ever had before. Nice Tank!!
The biggest channels I have seen caught on the Mn have been on live bullheads. I get a few nice channels every season on em.
I picked up a 33″ X 18″ channel cat at 11:30pm Thursday night, 25 June on a jumbo 7″ bullhead. I was fishing for flatheads and this guy just hammered my bullhead. I thought he was a small flathead until I netted him and he went nuts all over my boat. So yes, channels will eat a bullhead when they are hungry – at least this guy did.
My nephew got a 5# cat last Saturday on a large bullhead. That was the first time I had seen it. And it wasn’t that the channel was sucking on it, tearing it up and got hooked on the hookset, he bully was in the belly when we landed it.
Could it be a more likely occurrence during the prespawn, just as bullheads seem to be one of the prime baits for flathead prespawn? Maybe there is just a small window where they are so aggressive before spawning that they won’t pass up a bullhead or a bullhead will agitate them to biting? Maybe it is a sign that we are on the door of the channel spawn? I guess if the bullhead bite trails off after the spawn, that might be an indication. But this year it seems more prevalent. Maybe the weather this spring has changed the forage base?
So we seem to be having a run this year nd I don’t recall it like this on the past. What have you guys seen as far as channels on bullheads in the past?
We had about the same thing happen down here but we were useing bluegills, not that many bullheads around to fish for bait. With the late warming, then when it did warm up the channels hit like crazy, day and night. Thier done spawning now and just befor the spawn when thier systems were very active they’d just about bite on a bare hook. It will be interisting the see what happens up your way to see what the bites like after they have spawned. Its slowed some here but the river also dropped right after they spawned too, when the water comes up again they will bite again but maybe not as good as right befor they spawn when thier really hungry.
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Maybe the weather this spring has changed the forage base?
This can be ruled out where I’m fishing. The water EXPLODES with river minnows at times. Most minnows I’ve seen in 3 years. 
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This can be ruled out where I’m fishing. The water EXPLODES with river minnows at times. Most minnows I’ve seen in 3 years.
Maybe it is too much forage then? What do I know.
..don’t answer that.
I catch 3 or 4 a year on bullies and even more on live creek chubs. A lot of times you can tell before you set the hook if it’s a channel or not. This one had me fooled last night though until it surfaced near the boat.
holy moly!
That’s a monster channel cat! Any weight or measurements?
Shawn
ps sorry no pic, but last night I had a several pound channel blast a ‘gill and bury the rod in the holder…your fish looks like it could eat the one I caught! 
That one was 33×19
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