I had an empty bucket outside a few days ago, woke up after it rained all night and had 6″ of water in it. Well I drove over a creek I fish catfish in and the water was up 6′ that empties into the Cedar river, which is the diner bell for catfish. Up creek where I normally fish their putting in a new sewer culvert about 5′ in dia. and they have dozed it flat and built a small berm across that creek and kept dozing twards the sewage plant. I couldn’t go over the berm because too much water was coming over it and it was just plain dangerous even thought I have a 14′ doublewide with a 25 Evie. But I noticed a slow and shallow spot off too the left going up creek so I decided to fish it.
Tim and I got 3 fish last night on poles that went from 3 to 5 pounds with cut bluegills for bait, and then he had to leave so I took him home. I came back an hour later this time with my poles and a trotline with 15 hooks on it. I knew catfish go so shallow that sometimes you can see their top fin out of the water hunting for food. So I was in 20″ of water maximum and got out of the boat and tied off one end of the trotline to the bank and the other end I tied a 25 pound chunk of limestone rock to keep that end anchored and inplace.
I got 3 more about 4 too 5 lbs while sitting their for an hour and left for home around 9:30 and got to the ramp and loaded the boat. I knew there was a good bite on so I was excited to go to my trotline this morning and got back about half an hour ago. When I got to the line the last two hooks where I tied off to the bank was all that was left with a small 1 1/2 pounder on so I put it in the boat. This is so shallow that I had to wade pulling the boat and somewhere between my feet and knees deep at most. I thought maybe I could find the line and maybe atleast the big chunk of limestone I had On the other end. I waded out to waist deep water and pulled my dipnet over the bottom hopeing to find the main line or the limestone, Nope, nothing. What ever was on that third stageing was big and had to continuously rub the main line over a rock. I searched for that rock but all I could feel was gravel and sand. It had to have been the gravel and None of the gravel is over an inch big, small gravel. The lines were made last year so they were in good shape and the mainline was 4 or 500 lb test. The mainline is big enough that with a knot on each size of a big swivel, I learned not to use small ones a long time ago, that this line diameter is atleast 1/8th to maybe 3/16ths in diameter and the knots were around 1/4″ to keep the swivels in place. So anyway Im making another line this afternoon and going to go after it again later this afternoon and then its back up creek. A lot of people don’t realize that catfish go shallow at night, especially bigger ones and they will feed there all night, so that’s the place to be right now especially if you can get up in a creek. Go at it if you can because their biting good right now where the waters high. Good luck!
