Local catfish contest coming up

I have a friend who was fishing down at the local dam a few days ago. He said there’s a sign up that says there’s an upcoming local catfish contest and the biggest catfish is worth $200. I haven’t seen the sign yet or know anything about any of the particulars and I’m going to find out more. Its supposed to take place on Saturday the 21st of June here in Cedar Rapids Iowa. I know just about the entry fee and thats about it. Tim and I are going to be fishing it and when I find out more I’ll post it here. Any local guys heard anything?

PM me when you get the info for that Dan. I’ll probably head to Gander to see if they have something too. I’d be up for more tournament fishing…especially around here.

Finished 4th place out of 22 teams yesterday in the Des Moines River just above Red Rock. First time fishing that river so I thought we did pretty good. Only drawback to that tournament was they allowed flatheads to be weighed in along with the channels. Of course, everybody that finished above us (and a few below us) had some flatties. We only fished for channels. The winners actually had the limit of 6 flatties. But I still think we did pretty good for rookies on the river.

L8R…Ken

Considering you were new to that water you did really well Ken, did you drift fish with cut bait like you do at the res., how’d you fish where you were fishing, stinkbait, livers, cutbait?

With the long drawn out spring and the water warming up slowly the pre-spawn bite has been ok but not hot and heavy with nice fish and big numbers like other years. The Flatheads on the dam have almost been null and void. As of two weeks ago I talked to a couple guys and they said they were still catching channel females, more then usual with alot of blood on their eggs, their usually spawned out by then or very close to it, usually their about done the 1’st week of June.

I use Accuweather.com and looked at the 60 day forecast and they predict temps not even getting into the 90’s, even in July, the complete opposite of last year. I’ll let you know whats up on the contest when I find out. It is on the 21’st of this month. I think Tim said you can fish singular or on a two man team, there a difference on price for both for entry fees. I don’t know the boundries of water to be fished.

Well Dan, it was the Des Moines River so trolling was not an option. We did do some back drifting though. And we did a lot of ahchor fishing in the right spots…deep, shallow, fast current, slow current and it all worked at times. Couldn’t find that big kicker channel that we needed. All of out channels were within half pound of 8…some over, some under. Cut shad, gills and sunnies were all working too.Caught about 10 for the day…kinda slow but steady. And none under 5 pounds (I suppose those 8/0 ?Circles kept the littles out of the boat.

I’d like to see a tournament around here (Cedar River). I was out there last week one evening and caught about 8 in 4 hours. Two were 9 pounders too. That’s good for the Cedar. Even found a couple flatties in the trees.

I think they’ll spawn on the full moon…a couple days. The water temp is right I think so that’s the next big pull for them.

Keep me filled in on that local tournament…I’m in for sure.

L8R…Ken

Ken, I stopped by the dam tonight after work and read the brochure and its put on by, or the home is, by the Cedar river landing on F ave. just a block away twards the river from Rumors.

$20 bucks for a two person boat and everyone else is $10 from shore. The boundries is from chain lakes to the pool right above the 5-in-one dam, not below the dam.

When it comes to the chain lakes area I don’t know if its from the bridge down, or where it starts, its says chain lakes in general.

Theres a $20 entry fee per boat of two guys and they and everyone has to be at the Cedar River landing at 7:00 AM in the morning for a money deposit and rules, anyone fishing from shore is $10. It didn’t have a check in time at the late part of the day but said that all fish have to be alive.

If you want to fish that area I’ve run ditty poles on log jams and got some real bruisers, and the from the guys that fish that part of the river and from my own experience 30 lb’ers are common.

Here’s whats up,,,I know a guy where we can put in at his place and go up river from there instead of coming up from Ellis. I haven’t been in that stretch of the river yet this spring and don’t know what the river has to offer for logjams this year but I do know that theres a couple logjams that should be there and if their not it would be a complete surprise to me. If your in I’ll get mt boat in the water an check out that stretch to find what it has to offer this year.

From chain lakes down is a very good area with lots of big fish, 30’lbers are common, and I’ve got a few ideas on the where too’s and when’s, in the length of that river, it doesn’t change much up in that portion, because good logjams are there year after year.

We’ve lost 10′ dittypoles there and 30’s won’t do that. We won’t fish dittypoles because when everybody meets I’ll bet Its fishpoles only, but I’ve got a trick up my sleeve that’s legale and its lethal on logjams.

%100 payback and money for big fish etc. If your in, I’ve got the boat to put us right in the logjams and its a 10 minute run from the landing to the first logjam, then everything from there up 2 miles.

There’s some planning from now until then and I’ll get my bait tanks set up and get some 10″ plus bullheads and we’ll leave from the dock with them. We can bring extra bait and fish that too, my live well circulates river water so they will be alive, cutup or whole. Big 6″ plus bluegills and bullheads are the ticket for big flatheads on those logjams.

I think when everyone meets at the Cedar river landing that’s when everyone puts up their money. I’ve got a trick that we can put our bait right next to shore next to deep water, and our boat will be 20′ away tied to the limbs of the logjams, instead of anchoring.

I’m pretty happy with that stretch of the river, being its their choice because I fish that stretch year after year and when the bites good we get 200 lb weekends on channels with the common size between 5 and 10 lbs., we’ed be very close to good spawning grounds.

If you want to go, message me and we’ll go in my boat, I can keep our bait alive and well, I’m setup for that. I haven’t heard or read of a stop time when we have to be back at CRL, Cedar river landing but we’ll probably find out when we’er suppose to be at the weighin.