Set our ditty poles today

I went to a local creek and got about 25 chubs and took them to the river. I cut ditty poles about a week ago and put those in the boat. We set them all in deep no current areas right next to the main channel and in a couple deep feeder creeks. This time of year we’ll be lucky to get 5 fish in the morning because its May, June will be another story because thats when the big ones start biting more consistently. All the chubs were from 4″ to about 6″, excellent bait size, got a couple too big enough to fry up but maybe next time. Anybody doing good on catfish yet?

Being from up north…never heard of ditty poles? Unattended fishing lines are illegal up here in Mich…Is that a popular catfish technique?

Never heard them called ditty poles either. Tom,in the spring of the year bank pole fishing for big cats is common on the lowwer wisconsin river,the dnr makes tags to be put on the bank poles(a.k.a.-ditty poles) not to mention a list of rules.Most bank pole guys prefer to use bullheads or chicken liver for big flatheads.

It’s a regional name. The channel cats are up by the dam and eating pretty good here.

Ya Tom ditty poles or bank poles and ginney rods are all the same thing. We set 25 last night for the two of us, your allowed 15 hooks in any order here in iowa so we could have set 30 ditty poles. We checked them this morning after a couple young guys who are friends came back with Georges boat after they checked thiers, they pulled the two bigger channels off our rods and brought them back. They were both about 9 and 6 pounds, real nice clean looking channels too.

We took the two younger guys with us and checked our poles and to show them a little of the how toos so they could catch fish too. When we got to our first few poles all the hooks were bare so we rebaited and went down to the next ones. To make a long story short we caught 7 nice channels and had clean hooks on all the rest of the poles, we eigther had no bait or fish on all the 25 hooks, thats a good bite for this early in the year. We even had a 5 OT. stainless hook broke in the gullet, it takes a nice fish to break a 5 OT. stainless hook on a ditty pole, a real nice fish. Anyway for those that don’t know what a ditty pole is or looks like its a willow shaft about 6′ to 8′ long and the bottom is cut at an angled taper so you can shove it in the bank and out at an angle over the water. The top is cut right behind where the last few branches split at so when you tie your hook line off it won’t slip off the end. Big catfish will pull the ditty pole into the water and straight out from it and will get off if you don’t leave the last couple stubs from the last two limbs on the pole. Anyway were going to go get bait here in a couple hours and rebait, I think its a good idea to check them around midnight with a bite like this then again in the early morning. When catfish sense dawn is coming they work thier hardest to free themselves from the hooks, we’ve been on bites down here that you had to check your rods and lines every hour and there would still be bare hooks even then. If we had of checked our lines earlier we would have had more fish but didn’t get into the water until around 10 this morning, gasline leak and had to get that fixed. I’ll post tomorrow how well tonight is going to be, we should be able to killem if the wind gets calm again like last night. I’ll get some pictures too if I don’t forget like I did this morning, even had the camera in my pocket.

Just got back from the river and had 7 nice ones the smallest being about 1 1/2 pounds. The 4 biggest were about 9 to 10 pounds apiece, nice firm plump fish. Were getting close to the 100lb. mark, by the morning we’ll be over that amount. The fish are hitting good for you guys that can get out on the river, don’t miss the bite right now. Ditty poles or lines will put fish in the boat, try to find 1 1/2″ too 2″ bluegills, thats what were useing and most hookups were solid.

I thought we could only have 5 poles per person?

Unless im mistaken Jeremy your allowed 15 hooks in any order, I’ve never heard of any specific law saying thats how many your allowed when it comes to ditty poles, if you find out forsure could you please let me know because I don’t want to break the law. I know you can have 15 hooks on a trotline and I thought you could run that many on ditty poles but they had to have a guys name, address and phone number in a sealed plastic envelope so the game warden could see who they belonged too if he checks. Im pretty sure im within the law.

I just downloaded and checked the present laws Jeremy and your right. Each person is allowed 5 ditty poles with up to 3 hooks per pole but we use only one and always have. They have changed the laws because years ago you could use 15 hooks in any order, you can still use 15 hooks but only 5 ditty poles. I just called my friend and told him of the change in the law and he was surprised too because he was familiar with the old rules. We took our poles out of the water this morning anyway because of all the sticks and trash ending up around them with the high water. Thanks for telling me that the laws have changed.

No problem, I haven’t done it in a few years. Might be time to dig them out again. I see you are catching a bunch.

Jeremy theres one heck of a good bit right now. George this old boy I fish with knew of a spot thats normally shallow but with the rising water its around 5′ deep now. Theres three of us fishing so we set 15 poles last night and when we checked them this morning we had 12 fish on. All but 3 were around 5 to 8 pounds. Thier just hammering the bluegills right now. We set 10 poles in this area and baited them. Then we went down river and picked up the other 5 because the current was starting to come through last night and by the time we got back to this area to set those 5 with the rest we had fish on already and it was only about 1/2 hr. and in the daylight. Get your poles out and get some bait and look for no current areas with atleast 2 too 3 ft of water and you’ll hammer them. We cooked some up about 2 weeks ago and boy are they delecious, no stronger taste like they have late in the summer. They’ve really got the feedbag on right now.

Do you ever get out around the palo areas?

Not much Jeremy but were fishing south of there and theres no one else fishing it. Were on the way out the door going bobber fishing in the same area, I’ll let you know how we do,,,later