Cold water slows them down, they are not as aggressive as they are
during the warm water months, but
they still eat, and boy do they eat.
I fish the Ohio River
mainly for Flatheads starting in the spring when the waters warm up to
about 50
degrees and fish till the cold weather makes it impossible for me to
safely launch my boat. I am mainly
a river fisherman, but there is a time when I forsake the river and head
for a lake here in central Ohio.
C. J. Brown reservoir
is located about one mile north of Springfield, Ohio just off of
Interstate 70. There's
2,120 acres of water. Lots of shoreline to prop a pole. The
"Brown" as we call it is known very well for its
walleye population, but ask any walleye fishermen and he will tell you
that they will unhook five channel
cats for every walleye.
Channel cats are very
abundant in this lake and they are large, very large, and it's not
unusual at all to
catch several ten-pounders during a spring outing. Why are they large?
Shad, gazillions of the things. This
is a very fertile lake, most of the water has a green tint to it all
year long from the plankton that grows in it
and that’s the number one food source for shad. Most of these are
gizzard shad, but I have cast netted a
few threadfins out of this lake.
Each winter as the
waters of the Brown get cold, shad will start schooling up in huge balls
on this lake
and it is not unusual to see several dozen schools out on the lake at a
time. The majority of them are three
to four inches long all moving together shifting back and forth in the
lake. The cold water forces them to
head for deeper waters where it is warmer and as the cold air
temperatures set in the lake freezes over.
During the Spring as
the sun warms up the water and the ice is coming off the lake small and
large shad
are seen floating on the surface of the water. Shad don't handle cold
water very well it stresses them out and
causes them to die if the lake gets froze over for any period of time
they die by the thousands. As the water
starts to heat up it gets worse, more bodies floating on the surface,
some are suspended in the water and
some trickle to the bottom of the lake.
To a channel cat this
is Paradise, kind of like driving by a steak house and you can smell the
aroma of
Black Angus beef coming from the exhaust fan. Dead bodies of shad just
make a channel cats' mouth
water like no tomorrow. They are absolute gluttons during this time, and
are very easy to catch.
You won't need much in
the way of tackle, just need a good pole, ten to twenty pound line
spooled on
your favorite reel, some one ounce egg sinkers attach a swivel on a one
foot leader and some 2/0 hooks
be it Kahle style or regular style hooks.
Couple of different
ways you can fish, on the bottom or under a float, I like to use
balloons. If you're
floating just suspend it above the bottom.
What about bait? Well,
there are tons of it floating around on the lake all you got to do is go
out there and
scoop it up and your all set. You will see lots of ones that are just
starting to die and these are the ones to
gather up, there kind of twisting around swimming around in circles,
kind of stuck on stupid looking, put
some ice in a cooler and lay the bodies on top. Watch for the gulls,
they are one of the keys to the location
of cats. The gulls feed as heavy on shad as the cats.
This lake is easily
fished from the shore but it is better from a boat, Why? Structure.
Catfish love the stuff,
we are talking tree stumps, drop-offs, boulders, gravel and mud mixed
bottoms. The Brown doesn't have an
over abundance of structure but what little is there the cats will be
near it.
Two things on this lake make catfishing
after the ice clears off outstanding.
- #1- The wind, it can blow hard on this
lake and it does. There is nothing around there but the dam
to block the wind but most generally it is coming out of the south,
and it pushes all those dead
shad back towards the north east end of the lake where the water is
shallow.
- #2- Buck Creek, it flows into the lake
from the north East end from Morrefield towards the middle of
the lake. It brings warm water with it and the shallow water in this
area heats up fast if the sun is out
with no clouds in the sky.
So we have here a very
interesting scenario. A nice wind blowing all these mouth water shad
back into
this flat shallow area with Buck Creek flowing in from the northeast so
all the bait just gathers in a very large
area and kind of swirls in a big circle. Mister Whiskers comes in and
just starts chowing down. Look for
piles of dead shad bodies in the area, channels like to come from below
on the floaters and suck them down
so you will hear a popping sound as they open the mouths and slurp them
down.
Look for combination
of gravel and mud areas, this time of year the water is fairly clear,
but if the wind is
blowing it will be muddied up bad. There are several combinations of
both types of bottoms in this area. I
look for limbs sticking out of the water, and stumps, the water is
shallow back here about four foot deep to
one foot so keep the trolling motor up, there are numerous gravel bars
in the area, the depths can change
very fast in this area. One of my favorite areas to fish is the old
black mud bottom in front of the Islands.
This type of area is
one of the best producers for big Channel cats, you're looking for one
thing, Holes in
the mud. Round six inch holes. Remember earlier when I talked about all
those dead floating shad? Well,
some of those dead bodies burst as the sun comes up and heats the water.
That exploded body trickles
down into the mud and as the wind begins to blow they get covered up
with this soft gooey black mud and
the Channels just root in this stuff and go crazy.
My son Larry and I
stumbled onto this pattern a few years ago, saw all these holes, it was
real puzzling
trying to figure it out. Then we saw a very large Channel whose head was
sticking out of one of these holes.
He came out, turned, went down in the hole and popped out another hole.
They were using them like tunnels
to move across the bottom of the lake, been fishing them ever since.
Sometimes you can see
their tails sticking out of the water while they're standing on their
heads trying to
gulp down these shad that are buried in the mud. They will push down on
the bodies pinning them to a hard
surface and then open their mouth and eat them up.
When you catch them
there bellies are bulging and the cats have that black mud all over them
and please
don't make the mistake of laying one them in the bottom of your boat,
they will excrete all that black mud.
Oh man, what a mess!! It is tough to clean up.
I catch and release
all my channels but if your looking for some fine table fare this spring
head on over to
C.J. Brown reservoir for some nice channel cats after the ice comes off
the lake.
JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ
I can be reached at at my email address<plange@woh.rr.com>
or look for me out on the "Brown" this spring but,
when the river warms up then I'm off to there!
Thanks,
Tim "Doc" Lange
Doc's Website: <http://www.hookedoncatfish.com>
Ohio River Catfishing at it's finest. |
