Surprise Catch – What Kind ? – Weight ?

I caught this while out bass fishing this last weekend. I’m assuming it is a Channel Cat, But not being a cat fisherman I’m not totally sure. This fish was 35″ and REALLY FAT. What do you think a fish this length would weigh. My guess was it was in the 17-20Lb. range. It put up one heck of a battle on light bass fishing gear to say the least. I did not even know there were Cats in the lake I was fishing. Being that it was close to the Horseshow Chain I should not have been real surprised. My guess it is found it way into the lake by a creek in a high water year. I don’t think there are many in the lake as this is the 1st one we have caught on several trips to the lake. Other lakes in the area that have catfish in them you can hardly keep them off you line.

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Another Picture of it

Lets try this again

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Yep, that’s a big, fat channel cat. Nice catch and I bet it had your drag screaming!

dfresh wrote:

Yep, that’s a big, fat channel cat. Nice catch and I bet it had your drag screaming!

How big do Channel cat’s get? I’ve always thought they were a smaller species

Maybe 20lbs? Channel cats can get up near 40lbs in the rivers. Not sure where the horseshoe chain is but the Sippi is home to some dandy’s. I’m sure the catfish guys will have better info for ya…nice catch!

Funny because I was going to ask how fishing the Horseshoe chain was, because I assumed that’s where you hooked him.

I don’t hear of many big cats caught out of the chain, no?

That thing is a monster, and what an absolute beauty as well. Nice and clean.

Far as trophy mounts go people can have the eyes and pike, give me a cat like that on my wall anyday!

Awesome catch. Definitely a channel cat. We only have channels and flatheads in MN. That would be a very nice/big channel regardless of the river you are on. 5-10lbs are pretty common. I would almost equate 5-10lbers to 1.5-3.5lb bass and the one you caught as 5lb plus bass. Every lake has a 5lber but some have more than others and you won’t catch one everytime you go out.

If you want to catch channels that size fairly regularly, you need to fish the Red River. If you fish the northern reaches of the Red near the lockport dam, you can catch that size very regularly but it’s a unique place.

Northwoods Angling has two episodes on YouTube where they are fishing that damn and they have double and triple headers of fish that size.

eyeguy507 wrote:

Maybe 20lbs? Channel cats can get up near 40lbs in the rivers. Not sure where the horseshoe chain is but the Sippi is home to some dandy’s. I’m sure the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>catfish guys will have better info for ya…nice catch!

The lake wasn’t far from the chain so I assume that is where it came from. I hardly ever fish the chain for bass anymore. Between the damage the cats have done to the bass population and the fact that you can not keep the cats off you line its not really worth fishing unless its cats that you are after. I want to find a way to target them out there this winter. I’d think the back straps would work well for pickled fish and the tail sections would be good fried.

Pug – That last post was a reply to your post. Picked the wrong post to hit reply tp

Pug – That last post was a reply to your post. Picked the wrong post to hit reply to

Holy Cow
I think you just boated Catfish Hunter.
Great catch and beautiful fish
Congrats on being able to enjoy that experience!

This was a 34″ @ 18# caught out of Lake Mendota…..
Your’s is indefinably in the mid to upper 20’S……..Damn nice kitty

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Anytime a cat is caught north of the metro area you can be 99% sure it’s a channel.

That’s a nice one out of the Shoe area!

We have plenty of posts on ice fishing the chain on IDo. Jake has some that are current, but nothing has changed on how to fish them in the winter.

Tip: Don’t always assume cats are on the bottom.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Anytime a cat is caught north of the metro area you can be 99% sure it’s a channel.

That’s a nice one out of the Shoe area!

We have plenty of posts on ice fishing the chain on IDo. Jake has some that are current, but nothing has changed on how to fish them in the winter.

Tip: Don’t always assume cats are on the bottom.

Well if the Cat Man himself says it a nice one – Then I know it was a nice one.