Big fish, especially on light tackle. I think that fish is probably somewhere around 60 lbs. I would think a quick length measurement wouldn’t be too stressful, iffin you ever get the chance again. At least not any more so than the handling it appears to have had during the photo shoot. THese fish are pretty hardy, they can handle a length measurement. In fact, some of the recent state record blues have been brought back to the boat landing, measured on official scales, and then released (not in MN, but in other states like South Dakota, Nebraska, etc).

And as for the 70 inch estimate…not even close. A 70 inch flathead would weigh upwards of 200 lbs, I’d guess. I haven’t done much analysis but I do know that the kansas state record blue cat (not TOO far off dimension-wise from a flathead) was just over 56 inches and it was 102 lbs and change.

You guys are on a tear. I’m hoping that some of your luck rubs off through the interwebz onto other readers before Saturday.

Nice going Kev. Looks like you pulled a big brute at the end and snuck into the green. I say congrats to anyone who can compete with the red river folks on other waters. Some good stuff you have over there.

And what do you mean nobody goes there? There’s at least 4 posts in that thread!

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aanderud
That sasquatch thing is a touchy subject. When
them boyz at Salt Fork start on bigfoot stories I keep
quiet.
Once I thought they were joking and said
something cute and they got terribly upset. I
been outside at night for over 50 years and
never seen one. I guess that makes us even
since they never seen a 50 lb flathead

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Ha, next time someone tries telling bigfoot stories, ask them for pics. Then when they point to the blurry photos of the man dressed as an ape, you should tell them to put the sasquatch in a decoy bag until daylight so they can get better pics.

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Catch some gills and fish the Wisconsin side of the river.

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That’s what I would do.

I’d agree that there seems to be fewer frogs around. They seem to be more localized to specific locations, possibly. Heck I remember growing up in Hutch, you couldn’t drive through Meeker County to get to the lake (especially after dark) in September without seeing hundreds if not thousands of them jumping across the roads. Now you might see a few, but it’s nothing like it was.

There are obviously some frogs around yet, but the numbers seem way down. I’ve though the same about garter snakes the last decade or so.

Those pics are great. Matt, those ones with your son are hilarious. He can hardly lift that sucker. Looks to be what, maybe 5-6 years old?

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sure wish I had a bucket of frogs, going to lockport, MB and nothing but nothing beats frogs this time of year for channel cats. I also remember the days of seemingly hundreds of frogs on the roads. Now when I find them I am to slow to catch them, they are quick

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Yes, frogs are the bomb. We lucked out and had a friend find a boatload for us. We went up with over 200 of them last weekend, for 3 guys, and used all but about 40 (some of them were tiny and we doubled up two on a hook). Total fish caught was 81 fish in 4 nights for 3 guys – 1392 lbs of total weight (scale-weighed, not estimates). Fun stuff. I’m making it an annual trip. We have gone 3 of the last 4 years (skipped 2010 for some reason). Heck I might start going twice a year just because it’s THAT fun.

LOL Robby is that headstone real?

Lots of hours go into getting 60s. Nice work.

BK, I edited my post just before you posted apparently. Yeah, I was just messin around, seeing what Robby would say about my sasquatch thing…but then I figured it might be a whole day before we hear back from him, since he’s likely out catching more hogs as we speak, so I edited it to reflect what I believe to be the truth

Robby only fishes during the daylight. Almost every pic I’ve seen from his is a daylight beast. Some say that in Ohio, at night, you can’t catch anything but a glimpse of sasquatch.

Makes me want to retire so I don’t have to do the office gig 9-5.

Edit: Just kidding. I know he catches a lot (if not most) of his fish in the dark. He just keeps them in a decoy bag until daylight so he can get better pics of them. I’m guessing he has some daytime fish too, have to wait to hear back from him to get specifics.

That’s a dandy fish. Takes a pretty good sized fish to get to where I can say I’ve never caught a catfish even HALF that big.

Again, released alive! I love it. This right after the south dakota monster was caught and released. Wow, what is the world coming to!

The flathead length/girth weight estimator (length * length * girth / 1275) puts this fish at abut 99 lbs. Good to know it’s reasonably accurate that high even on multi-species action. This will be handy for when I have to throw back the 100 lb channel cat in the MN river and my scale is bottomed out.

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Rumor has it Trumar hung up his walleye gear to search out some giant sheepies

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These guys were rockin the drum/sheepshead in Canada.

Video

Nice, fish. That’s the first 50 pounder I’ve seen intentionally caught in Minnesota on any of the forums I visit in quite some time. There have been a couple caught by walleye guys though Any Robbie gets them in Ohio but he calls those one “little guys” I think.

It’s a north american channel. From the western hemisphere. On earth.

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Have you heard of anyone using frogs regularly other then the Red?

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A guy I know is catching them left and right on the MN river between here and Kato in various spots on frogs. One report was that in one evening he got 15+ of them on frogs and 0 on cutbait (and AFAIK, they had rods out with both all night). We were out all night last night from 7 pm to 2 am and had cutbait out on a least one of our rods the whole time, with just a single channel cat to show for it. I know there are fish in the parts of the river we were fishing, so I’m thinking maybe frogs would have been the ticket. Unfortunately as you said, they’re harder to get access to.

It’s nice when they’re biting on cheap and easily available bait like they are in your neck of the woods.

Nice fish, BK. Do you guys get a frog bite down that way in August? I’ve noticed that in Manitoba that’s all they’ll bite on in mid to late August, and here it seems like they have picked up a bit on frogs too. Obviously if you’re getting doubles on stinkbait and cut suckers there’s no incentive to switch now, but later in August and into September do you see them change preferences?

We got a new store out here on the west side — Carver. I live roughly than 2 miles from it (the GPS says 1.84, but it might be as the crow flies, and via road might be pushing 2 miles). Pretty sweet store! And before anyone says they’re jealous — remember that it’s Carver. Fleet Farm is about ALL we have as far as shopping.

Why are you land locked now, Brian?

Yeah I never can figure out why on a river the water doesn’t have a more uniform temperature top to bottom. You’d think the current would keep it mixed well, but it must not.

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Back before it was popular…every year…Personally I have not targeted them since they became popular – I believe that 2002 was my last trip(that was the first year that the wheelers point landing was full).

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Quite a strange reaction, if you ask me. I mean….if I have something that I love doing (enough to drive up there and spend my time and money doing it EVERY YEAR), and it’s kickass and uber-awesome, I don’t just STOP DOING IT if a few other people happen to start doing it.

I guess I’m surprised that the only thing you liked about it was the ‘unpopular’ aspect. I would have assumed the fact that you’re catching some of the biggest inland-water fish (save alligator gar) and having a blast with your buddies would have been more of an attractant than the ‘unpopularity’ factor. Just me though.

Use no weight if you have little to no current. Use an ounce if you have some current or are going against a very small current. Use 2 if you’re going against a stronger current. Just whatever it takes to get to the bottom.

Usually in bass tournaments the co-angler fishes out of the back of the boat and gets second crack at all the hogs.

You can emulate this, but just lie when you are telling your boat-mates where the best spots to cast are. Just have to get sneaky a little. Tell your boat-mates where “the best spots” to cast are — “yeah, least time every fish was caught out of THAT location”. Inform them that you’re going to “settle for the leftovers” yourself.

Soon, you too will be addicted to cattin, and making trips to Lockport and beyond to do it.

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I didn’t say you couldn’t find one but it is 2012. A 17 year old motor I wouldn’t trust to get me home unless I knew the owner who took care of it.

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Test drive the engine. Compression test it. Inspect what you can of the cylinders. Make sure the water impeller is doing its job.

It’s a 2-cycle engine. If it runs well, it’ll get you there and back again. The failure modes on these things isn’t usually fatigue due to thousands of hours of runtime — it’s usually issues like being run without proper oil mixtures, being run without proper cooling, etc. And you’ll notice this in your test drive.

I’d wager that if you went out on the Mississippi river or any large lake right now and asked 100 people with “fishing” style boats what year their engine was made, at least 1/3 if not 1/2 of them or more would be 17 years old or more.

Given 5k to spend, and water as big as the mississippi, I’d buy a 15 year old boat with a strong 40+ horse before I’d buy something newer and sacrifice down to 20 horses. That’s all.

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…here is nothing I would consider river worthy at that price range in deep Vs unless you are looking at boats well over 10 years old with a 10 plus year old motor. You want reliability and redundancy if you fish at night. the only way I’d buy a boat that old was if my granny owned it and only drove it to church on Sundays.

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Wow, I hope you’re kidding about the usable lifespan of a boat and/or motor being capped at 10 years. They’ll last well beyond that.

Also, with used boats (especially older ones), you’re going to find that the biggest cost in a boat isn’t the hull — and in fact, 10-15 year old hulls are almost free. The engine is the driver. As such, there’s not a big difference in cost between a similarly sized and similarly equipped V boat or Jon boat. The engine size will drive your cost either way you decide to go. But a word of advise — Don’t under-size just to get a brand new engine, because the ‘sippi is a big body of water. Even with as little as I fish it, I end up travelling at MINIMUM of 10-20 miles in a day. Some extra horsepower can be of great service in getting you where you want to be without taking all day in transit.

I’d say somewhere to start looking — to get an idea of what is available — would be a mid-90s fishhawk from crestliner (or I’m sure alumacraft and lund have similar rides, but yo’ll be paying more for the lund, guaranteed). They make several 16.5 and 17.5 foot models that would fit the bill. I’ve seen them with 50 horses for well under your $5k budget.

Some samples (by no means an all inclusive search, just soemthing quick to give you an idea)

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/boa/3099742578.html

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/boa/3104853121.html

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/boa/3096124467.html

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/boa/3100524105.html

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My 16 ft coast guard jon handles the big lake fine until you have 1.5 waves.

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On the mississippi, 1.5 foot waves are possible (dare I say even commonplace) every day, regardless of wind — they’re boat wakes. From barges and who knows what else. Jon boats work just fine, but the V hull gives a better ride, and with the width that’s common on them nowadays, a better all around boat to fish out of. Again, just my personal opinion.

It depends on if (and how often) you are planning to fish small water. If you’re fishing primarily waters that are barge-capable, then I don’t see the need to go with a flat bottom jon boat. They’re not exactly the most comfortable all-around boat to fish in for all conditions (big water, small water, wavy lakes, etc), but they do handle shallow water nicely.

I can tell you that I have both an 1850 sportfish from crestliner and a 1648 polarkraft jon boat, and there’s no way I’d take the jon boat on the ‘sippi. Might as well fish in comfort on the bigger water. The river I fish the most though is the Minnesota, upstream from where they dredge for barge traffic. Here it gets quite shallow late in the year, so the smaller boat comes in handy.

Congrats. That’s a 50+ for sure. Those 50+ fish are NOT common, that’s for sure.

Indeed, I would prefer to see the restrictions on only flatheads, but if they aren’t going to make a distinction between the two species, I’d like to see the more restrictive set of regulations used.

And I agree with the C&R comment — I like the idea of catch and release seasons for various species during various times of year (sturgeon come to mind), since people always seem to get around the closed seasons using the loophole that they’re fishing for some “other species” anyway. Cold water C&R is usually not an issue for these hardy fish, I don’t think. It would be a less drastic step than closing the season completely.

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The season for catfish is open all year except from the Prairie du Sac Dam downstream to the railroad bridge at Sauk City where the open season is May 5 through November 30.

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Whoa, why can’t they just do that everywhere? If it makes sense in this section of this river, then why not the whole dang state? Gotta love the DNRs and their addiction to special regs for special bodies of water.