How to Target Channel Catfish During Spring Run-Off

My bobber twitched, then dropped out of sight for an instant before it re-emerged in the chocolate-brown water of the Milk River. Same thing on the second float, then the third. I knew I was onto a big channel catfish.

On the fifth pass, I finally hooked the fish and managed to steer its head away from a tangle of submerged cottonwood limbs before I brought it to my kayak. It turned out to be a broad-shouldered 9-pounder, a good channel cat for the Milk, and about what I expect for a heavy-water fish at the height of the May spawn.

The give-away that this was a sizable cat and not a bait-robbing goldeye or smallmouth bass was the action on my bobber. Sometimes called “swimming tongues,” catfish have taste buds on just about every square inch of their skin, and in especially turbid water when visibility is limited, they’ll brush or whack baits with their tails to assess their food value. That was the tap, tap, tap on my drifted cutbait.

Later in the summer, after the water drops and clears, I’ll switch tactics, soaking baits on the bottom of deeper holes. But now, while catfish rivers are swollen and turbid with runoff, I’m covering as much water as I can by drifting baits past likely spawning structures. It’s a tactic I’ve learned in two decades of recognizing that homely channel cats are every bit as responsive to seasonal conditions and shifts in fishing tactics as any trophy bass or picky trout.

FINDING CATS IN RUNOFF

Catfishing gets good just as rivers in the West are getting wild in late spring and early summer. Warming water temperatures send channel cats on a pre-spawn feeding binge, when they can move miles in a day as they pack on calories. This is the story of May conditions from Northern Plains rivers like the Milk, the lower Yellowstone and Wyoming’s North Platte and Bighorn, to big, muddy rivers like the Arkansas in southeast Colorado and the Yampa in the northwest corner of the Centennial State.

It’s the time for “hole-hopping,” as veteran catfisherman Tyler George calls it. The Wyoming angler soaks baits in holes, which he defines as small sections of quiet water just downstream from a riffle or a run. Fishing each hole for a defined period of time, usually no more than 10 minutes, allows George to find fish that are on the move. These are the conditions that make trotlines effective in states that allow them (mostly in the South), though they’re generally prohibited in Western waters.

Catfishers in boats can take advantage of the better access provided by high water and the mobility provided by the watercraft. It’s a tactic employed by most of the serious channel catfish anglers on the lower Yellowstone downstream of Billings, Mont., all the way to the North Dakota border.

“The key is you want to be moving, whether you’re a boat angler or on shore,” says Brenner Flaten, multi-time winner of the Montana Catfish Association’s angler of the year honors. “On large rivers, you’re probably talking about boat fishing, but on reservoirs and even if you’re bank-fishing our bigger rivers, plan to fish different depths and different types of structure until you find a pattern.”

Just as important as mobility is bait choice and presentation. You’d think that given the prodigious scenting ability of catfish and the near-zero visibility of turbid water in these low-gradient streams, that you’d want to use the smelliest baits. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about catfishing, and one that rankles many of the region’s most serious catfishers.

“There’s more to it than bringing a lantern and a lawn chair and soaking a stink bait,” says Flaten. “Catfishing can be as simple or as technical as you want to make it, but I’m routinely amazed at how much these fish move, how selective they can be in the baits they’ll bite and how strong they are.”

A favorite high-water bait on Montana’s plains rivers is a live leopard frog. Some anglers lip-hook the amphibians and let their movement draw in predators. Others cut the rear legs off the frog to create a blood trail. Additional go-to baits include frozen shrimp, anchovies, salted minnows and cutbaits of all sorts, from a chunk of sucker meat to the tough bellies of goldeye.

“Channel cats will bite dead baits, but they prefer fresh, natural baits,” says Flaten. “Fresh cutbait is the best. You can use frozen bait, but make sure it’s been frozen fresh and has plenty of blood that will ring the dinner bell as it thaws on your hook.”

Then there’s the matter of how to rig and fish baits. As I mentioned in the intro, I like to drift baits below a right-sized bobber. The float keeps my bait out of bottom-oriented trash, and I can cover more water than if I simply soaked my bait in a single spot. But other anglers, Tyler George among them, prefer to anchor their bait in a hole and let the catfish find it. He uses a bottom weight, but then runs baits off a three-way swivel so they can stay off the bottom and are more easily available to fish.

Understanding current dynamics is a big part of runoff-season success. Knowing where fish will stack up in slack-water holes will put more and bigger fish on your stringer, but so will your willingness to lose riggings. Catfish like to hang out in tangles of roots and submerged timber, old cars used for riprap on eroded banks and all manner of hook-eating structures. And when they know they’re hooked, they head deep in the cover. If you’re fishing heavy-water catfish correctly, you’re going to lose a lot of terminal tackle.

WHEN WATERS RECEDE

As runoff moves through catfish rivers, lowering flows and clearing the water, fish respond by returning to defined spots and feeding heavily. It’s my favorite time of year, not necessarily for trophy cats but for numbers of bites and fish on the stringer. It’s also a time to catch cats on a variety of methods, from spinnerbaits and rattling crankbaits to bait-tipped jigs and, in some cases, even big, splashy topwaters.

But oily baits are the gold standard. You could call these searching baits that can move fish hundreds of yards. West-coast catfishers are partial to cut mackerel or bonito or even whole anchovies. Sucker cutbait works, and shrimp can be a secret weapon when other baits don’t bring cats to your hook. How you deliver these baits is your call. Anchor them to the bottom where fish can find them, drift them under a bobber or bounce them through holes with just enough weight to get them down but not hang them up on snags.

Especially on busy recreational waters, nighttime is catfish time, but twilight will bring cats to the bite on every lowering water in the region. More important than baits and time management is finding holding water. This is the time to channel Tyler George’s ability to find holes.

Identifying holding water in a catfish river is no different from finding feeding seams in a trout river. You’re looking for changes in the surface current that reveal holes, breaks and feeding lanes. Generally, if you find a riffle or a stretch of shallow water, there’s probably a hole below it that holds cats. You’ll also find good holding water on the inside bends and around any obvious structure like root wads, wing dikes and those riprap cars.

In many farm-country rivers, like the Milk, the Yampa and both the North and South Platte rivers, irrigators will start to take flow by late May and early June. The declining flows will further concentrate cats in those defined holes and feeding spots.

CHANNEL CAT HOT SPOTS

• There’s no shortage of good catfish water in the West, but these lakes and rivers stand out.

We could list dozens of different waterways here, but to keep the roster manageable, we’ll keep it to a single dozen and divide it into sub-categories.

BEST BANK-FISHING RIVERS

Northeast Montana’s Milk River has more bends and twists than a pile of rope, but all that sinuosity means plenty of shore structure. With decent access and a rising population of cats, this should be a no-brainer. But a water-delivery structure failure last year has this year’s flow outlook as murky as its water. The Bighorn River upstream of Yellowtail Reservoir is a great spot to catch numbers of 2- to 4-pounders before Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin sugarbeet irrigators reduce flows.

BEST BIG-CAT WATERS

The lower Columbia River around Portland and Vancouver, Wash., can produce 20-pounders just about any season, but the spring is a great time to fish slack water with searching baits.

Aurora Reservoir in Colorado is home of the state-record channel catfish, a ridiculous 40-plus-pounder.

BEST BOAT RIVERS

The lower Yellowstone River around Glendive, Mont., is the epicenter of 100 miles of good catfishing upstream and another 100 miles downstream. Work shoreline structure with smelly baits.

California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are full of eating-size channel cats. You may have to sort through blue cats and bullheads to find them, though.

BEST URBAN CATFISHING

Denver’s South Platte River has a few choice catfish holes. The river north of 88th Ave. in Thornton is a good destination for after-work catfishing.

Phoenix has one of the best urban fishing programs in the nation, and while the Gila and Salt rivers are worth hitting for moving-water whiskerfish, the city’s ponds are better spots for action and limits. Riverview Lake Park in Mesa and Lake Pleasant are great spots for nighttime action.

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• This article was featured in the May 20225 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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