# Catfish Fishing



## pendog66 (Mar 23, 2005)

I have caught catfish on hot dogs, shrimp, crawdads, doughballs, nightcrawlers and corn. But what i find as the best bait is sunfish. Around the englewood damn and all over the stillwater i have caught monster blue and channel catfish. I use a small split shot and cast the sunfish into the current and let it bump and swim around. I also catch big smallmouth with the occasional largemouth. What do you think is the best bait? And how do you fish it?


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## mrfishohio (Apr 5, 2004)

> I also catch big smallmouth with the occasional largemouth


 I had to re-read, I thought for a second you meant you catch smallmouths by using largemouths for bait *LOL*


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## pendog66 (Mar 23, 2005)

yeah i kinda worded that funny, my bad


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## atrkyhntr (May 31, 2004)

Hope you C&R them cats/bass for future fishing  
eat the sunfish


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## pendog66 (Mar 23, 2005)

I am strictly catch and release, i don't eat anything out of the river


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## atrkyhntr (May 31, 2004)

UDAMAN pendog66... You fish the Mad at all?


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## husky hooker (Apr 6, 2004)

i would like to see a pic of a blue cat out of the still water creek.


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## Darwin (Apr 12, 2004)

FYI husky, that would be the Stillwater river he is talking about. I grew up in that area. I never caught a blue cat out of it but I'm sure it is possible.

pendog66 I spent many hours on the Stillwater North of the dam growing up. Smallmoth, largemouth, rockbass and channel cats were what we would target mostly. Those smallies on thet section of the river really love a cotton cordell "Big O" in fire tiger or natural crawdad!!
Also 2 baits produced really well for us on the channel cats, soft crawls and catalpa worms. Other baits work but we seemed to do our best on those.


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## mrfishohio (Apr 5, 2004)

Bluecats are pretty rare in OH other than in the Ohio River & a few lakes that were stocked. Most "bluecats" that are caught are simply channelcats with a blue color, frequently misidentified, especially when the males are in the spawning season. Their heads get real weird, look like a dog. Bluecats in the winter are often near white & have pink fins too.
I'm not saying there aren't any elsewhere, but they would indeed be rare, also they are on the endangered species list in OH and must be returned immediately without damage. 










They have a distinctive head...smaller than a channelcat. They can be difficult to tell the difference on younger(small) fish. As they mature, you'll notice their backs have a hump.


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## mrfishohio (Apr 5, 2004)

Here's a big channelcat (15#) that I actually snagged in the back throwing a spoon for wipers against the bank. It was in about 12" of water, thought I was snagged until it took off, then it felt like a 30# flathead when it got in the 35' deep current. I was using light tackle too. 
Anyway, you'll note the misshapen head, often these are wrongly referred to as bluecats.









Same fish...










Here's another channelcat that almost has bluecat markings. It was beat up, like it got tangled up in some rebar-note the cut fin.


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## pendog66 (Mar 23, 2005)

those are some good fish where did u catch them?


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## husky hooker (Apr 6, 2004)

the easiet way to tell them apart is their annal fin,the channel is round and the blue is a straight edge fin.


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## mrfishohio (Apr 5, 2004)

All those fish were from the Ohio River.


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## shuvlhed1 (Apr 13, 2004)

I'm still thinking about that small split shot in the current.


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## rustyfish (Apr 27, 2004)

I would agree with sunfish. My fav is a green sunfish, they are soft and you can keep them alive for a long tim in a bucket and on the hook. I like sunfish for bass too. It is a natural food for bass. I use almost all live bait, and all of my bigest bass have been caught off sunfish.

I also tell best between blue and chan cats by the anal fin.


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## atrkyhntr (May 31, 2004)

I quit using live bait for bass years ago because I hated losing all the hooks I had to cut off because they swallowed the things grrrrrrr...
You are right I caught some HUGE bass with live bait...
Don't anymore hmmnmnn


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## CarpFreak5328 (Aug 16, 2004)

If you ever fish at delware resivor people always tell me that they catch bluecat out of there. Sometimes up to 20 pounds, but I have never caught one out of there. People normally tell me this during the spawning season when the channels change colors. They dont believe me when I tell them there channels.


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## shuvlhed1 (Apr 13, 2004)

will they not believe you, but some people get down right nasty if you tell them their 5lb "bluecat" is actually a channel.


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## Fish-N-Fool (Apr 12, 2004)

A gut at Deercreek a few years back caught a very nice 12-14 lb channel cat @ the spillway. When I came over to take a look at the fish he was telling everybody it was a Blue. I told him that it was not a blue, but indeed a channel. He was very mad and insisted that it was a Blue; even as he started to put it on a stringer. So, I asked if I could take a closer look and he was glad to let me. I looked at the fish very carefully and said, "Yep you were right, this is a Blue cat and I apologize for being mistaken" (It was definately a channel) Then I told him that Blues were endangered and had to be released and another felllow there backed me up on it. After a breif moment with 5-6 people there watching him, he released the fish  

He sure looked pissed, but that is his problem!


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## shuvlhed1 (Apr 13, 2004)

Sounds like something I would do.


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## atrkyhntr (May 31, 2004)

hahahaa thats great!!


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