Went out yesterday for the first time after ice out. It was warm (70ish) and windy (15-20 MPH). It was a good day. Started out on my favorite creek to get bait…creek chubs. Caught a dozen with some of the wax worms I had left over from ice fishing. Loaded up the boat and headed to Coralville Reservoir. Had a late start because of the morning rains so I didn’t put in until about 2. Threw the cast net a few time and caught some crappies, a few shad, a buffalo and a carp. Released the crappie but kept the rest for cut bait.
Picked up my partner at the boat ramp and wetted our first line at about 3:30. Caught our first cat 10 minutes later…a nice 8 pounder. I was glad to see she was fat and healthy. They all looked very skinny last year. Moved on to a new spot and caught another 6 pounder. Tried a third spot and caught a 4 pounder. Seemed like we would catch one fish at each spot, then it was time to move on. I think we may have been a little impatient.
Got to our 4th spot and had a cat in the boat before we got all of our lines in the water. We stayed there until 6:30 and ended up with 14 in the boat. Kept 4-4 pounders for the dinner table. That spot produced some fish. We had a couple doubles and a triple. That’s the kind of action I like.
Water temp was 50…that’s right…50 in March. We were amazed. Water looked like chocolate milk which must have contributed to the warm up. We caught fish in 2-25 FOW. That last spot was 4-6 feet deep. All of our spots were on the wind blown side of the lake…that may have helped with the warm water too. But that’s where they were. Caught them on all of the baits we tried. The cats didn’t seem to be too picky however the bite was very light. Had to set the hook on most fish and none buried the rod on the bite as usual. A slow, deliberate hook set worked well with our WST Circle and WST Circle K hooks. They were all hooked in the side of the mouth just as designed.
It was more than a good afternoon. 14 cats in 3 hours is a great day. I’ll be going back real soon. So, it is on. Get out there and catch some Ice Out Cats. This could possibly be the best time of the year to catch a boat load of channel cats. They’re hungry and they are active.
See you on the water…Ken
