Drifting for St Croix Channel Cats

I posted a St Croix fishing report on the Fishing Report Forum. Here is the link: Drifting for St Croix Channel Cats

Good post Steve,

I have been trying some of this down here on the lake and haven’t had much success. What makes a spot a candidate for a drift presentation? I tried to hit a few midlake humps, and shelves near weeds where I have had good success later anchored up.

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have been trying some of this down here on the lake and haven’t had much success. What makes a spot a candidate for a drift presentation? I tried to hit a few midlake humps, and shelves near weeds where I have had good success later anchored up.

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Kevin – I just started drifting for channels last year and then the key was finding the forage base. I was fishing later in the summer when the shad schools were all over. It seemed like the channels were in and around the large schools of shad that showed up as big dark clouds on the sonar. I was finding most fish on mid-lake humps and on that first breakline into deeper water that had shad schools on them.
I’ve only started drifting the last week and I’ve been working some spots that I had luck on last year. Right now I seem to be finding fish on that first breakline into deeper water and on the tips of points into deeper water. I run my drifts from 12′ to 30′ and move around until I hit or miss a fish. I quickly waypoint the spot on my GPS and then work that spot until I lose fish. Then I will widen or extend my drift trying to relocate fish. It is really a fun way to catfish and a good way to cover a lot of water. I save all my waypoints that catch a fish – I figure if they are there now they will be there again.

You ever try to target suspended fish? or just bottom on 3 ways?

Kevin – These conditions are pretty close to the lake situation you fish. The river here is more lake than river with the main channel 30+ feet and some large holes 50+ feet deep. I normally fish those first flats just after that 1st breakline out of the deep water. I haven’t tried to target suspended fish. I’m sure they suspend later in the summer when they are feeding on shad but I’m not sure how to go about chasing them then.

I’ve had good luck just staying on the bottom. My rig normally consists of a snap swivel to the main line and a barrel swivel off the leader on to the snap swivel. The weight of the two swivels and the hunk of cut bait will put your bait right in the target zone. I try to drift about .5 to less than 1 mph – the slower the better.

Cool post Steve! Its nice to hear about someone breaking out of the traditional presentation confines of the particular sport fish, and actually teach yourself new ways to catch them. Sounds satisfying.

Turk