So we got a late start last night…

…but that didn’t stop us having one of the best nights I have ever had on the water! Jakob, me and my buddy Jeff all had a blast, and did I mention that it was one of the most productive fishing nights of my life?

We started out at the 494 bridge over pool 2 and headed a ways south. We had a lot of issues with current at first, but we shifted around a bunch and finally found a spot that got us out of the current and, we hoped, on fish. So we all dropped some bait, me and Jake using bullheads and Jeff tossing a chunk of cut.

This spot was picture-perfect… deep, heavy current right next to a baitfish-choked shallow flat, lots and lots of downed trees in the area. A guy couldn’t have asked for a better spot.

At first I kept fouling in the weeds, but Jake and Jeff did fine. Jake was the first to hook up with a nice 26″ walleye on a bullie.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff’s clicker went off and he hauled in his PB cat and his first flattie ever. She was just shy of 10# and a really gorgeous gray/black speckling. Interestingly, he was fishing out of the side of the boat where the current was heaviest. We’d been on the water for, oh, an hour by then?

Somewhere in there Jake’s rod started to do a really nice bucking bronc imitation an after several long, hard runs, we boated a 20# flattie on another chunk of cut sucker! At this point Jake took (and kept) Big Fish for the night.

However it was at this point that my rod turned into a magic wand and I nailed the next 4 fish. All channels on cut, they ranged in size from 2# up to 8.5#! It was shortly after my last channel that my clicker started to sing and I grabbed my rod for a premature hookset that lost me a flat head that nearly turned my poor bullhead inside out.

Yes, I switched back to bullie for a while. I wanted a monster flat to top Jake’s Big Fish.

We kept a few destined for the freezer for a fish fry we’re planning later in the season, but as per policy in my boat, nothing got kept that was 10# or more. It’s a decent compromise between keeping bigger fish and keeping the fishery healthy… it works.

Anyway, Jeff and I have never caught this many fish, especially of this quality, ever! We even almost had a couple doubles. I just wish I knew what took the hide off my bullhead.

That last (pretty gross) picture is the stomach contents of one of the channel cats. I don’t often check stomachs anymore, but this one was huge and figured I wanted to know. I found the bones from 3 chicken wings and CHERRIES. Real cherries, and a bunch of cherry pits!

You never know what you’re going to see on the river!

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and CHERRIES. Real cherries, and a bunch of cherry pits!

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So that’s where North Stars other pie went! Funny, no pits in mine.

A great night on the river. You’ll have to start making marks on the ‘toon for each fish caught out of it.

I’m glad to hear someone had some luck last night! Me and a buddy have been out the last 3 nights on pool 2 with not so much as a bite the last 2 nights. Jared if you don’t mind me asking were you fishing north or south of st paul park and how deep were you fishing?
Take care!
Kevin

Great report, glad you guys had a great time!

Hey thebigfisherman, we found a nice spot where a shallow, very warm backwater finger swept up off the channel and behind a point, making a sort of bay, or “dining room” for the fish. The channel along there is about 10-15 FOW, and the backwater is as little as 2′ deep. We anchored parallel to the current, nose upstream, right on the edge of the ledge (the bow was only in about 2′ water, the stern was in about 3-5′). Then we were casting right out into the current perpendicular to the boat and letting the current carry the bait downstream in an arc to the current break along the edge between the channel and the backwater.

Fishing that current seam along any slackish, shallow water holding baitfish should be a good recipe for catfish stew. I caught my personal best in a very similar way a couple weeks ago not far from where we were fishing last night.

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and CHERRIES. Real cherries, and a bunch of cherry pits!

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So that’s where North Stars other pie went! Funny, no pits in mine.

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LOL. I actually found an undigested Bing cherry in its stomach. I’m gonna take some along next time to see what I can do with them as bait.

What got me, though, were the chicken bones. I mean, I know there’s a BW3 on top of the hill in Inver Grove, but I did NOT know that catfish could place call-in orders for delivery, or that BW3 delivered to “underside of the dock” as a valid address!

Was there a processing plant near where you fished? Chicken farm?

Perhaps a young couple was eating KFC by candle light near the river, got frisky and knocked the bucket in the water unintentional.

No chicken processing plant or anything that I know of. I am, in fact, assuming someone dropped their last few BW3 wings in the water by accident.

Just goes to show that nothing really goes to waste…

Chicken bones in a catfishes stomach, thats a rare one. Someone must have been eating a lunch somewhere along the shore and threw the bones in the water. I wonder what kind of list would be created if we knew the things that fish ate in the past, A too Z probably.

So I know where you were at, did you know that the Park Cafe makes some fine broasted chicken? Just saying….

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So I know where you were at, did you know that the Park Cafe makes some fine broasted chicken? Just saying….

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My mother inlaw lives down there, and loves their chicken. I’ve seen her take a carcass and run down behind the river banks with it. She does’nt like to share.
If all there was left is bones I am sure they were from her.

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Chicken bones in a catfishes stomach, thats a rare one. Someone must have been eating a lunch somewhere along the shore and threw the bones in the water. I wonder what kind of list would be created if we knew the things that fish ate in the past, A too Z probably.

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Here’s the thing, though: the middle part of a chicken wing has 2 bones, right? There’s the drummie; the “middle part” and the worthless, meatless bit at the end. The bones I found in this thing were not only in perfect pairs from the middle part of the wing but a couple of them were actually still in the right relative position to each other… I actually looked to make sure what I was seeing.

I can only draw the conclusion that they were ingested whole, otherwise there would have been missing bones, at least. So the next time I go catfishing I’m swinging by Pizza Hut to get some hotwings for bait! Apparently the big channels just LOVE them.

way to hook em up, they look alot better then the st. croix flattie

Hey that little flattie was cute!

I got one of the 3 videos we took that night up on YouTube… here’s the link:

Jeff’s Big Fight

I didn’t censor any of the bleeps, just so you’re aware… I recommend you not show it while the pastor is over for coffee.