catfish on lures

[snagger]

I have been reading this board for years now and I dont remember anyone talking about catching cats on plugs.When I lived in the oaks I spent alot of time on the water like most of you,but I would get bored of the same ole so I started changing things up.I tryed everything except drift fishing.The one thing I found that was really fun in the summer was casting and trolling plugs ,deep crankbaits etc.It worked in the keys and in deep open water.It sounds stupid but I even did good with a wrapped kwikfish trolled slow on the bottom.I just thought I would share an idea that worked really good in the past.Would love to see a report from someone trying this.Wish I could but I now live a good six plus hours awayGOOD LUCK.

[catfished]

I used to catch an occasional large catfish with plastic worms while bass fishing but not lately. It's quite common for bass anglers to hook into a big catfish with plastics, jigs and even crankbaits, especially in areas with rocky bottoms. I once caught a small channel cat of about 5 pounds with a sub surface Rapala, it actually broke surface when it hit.

[LCyak]

My largest catfish this year 16# was caught on a Rapala fire tiger count down here in the Lakeport Lagoons.  I've always done well with spinners and crank baits for catfish early in summer.

[stonegrody]

I caught a nice catfish on a Spinnerbait on 10/21/09 from a pier in Lucerne. This was at sundown so my phone's lack of flash caused the pictures not to turn out very well.

You can kind of make out the blade hanging from it's mouth.



This is probably the third catfish I've ever caught and it was by far the biggest. My guess would be that it was over 10 pounds.

I figured it was safe to hold it by the mouth. That's how I learned one very important thing about catfish: THEY BITE HARD!

[tightline]

i have friend who fishes the lake often and he can only catch catfish on lures. when he actually tries to fish for them with bait he never catches them. however, if he starts bass fishing, he catches catfish! so yes, they hit lures often.

tightline

[derbingel]

I have never caught catfish at Clear Lake while actually targeting them with cut frozen bait, or live bait. I suck at fishing with bait for this species. 

I've only caught them accidently while targeting bass, or crappie, with artificial lures, such as jigs/tubes/jerkbaits.   

[srbphoto]

I was fishing on Cache Creek with a friend and he caught a catfish on a flyrod with a popper.

[longshot]

we caught jerkbait catfish around rattlesnake pre-fishing for the ABA TOC kinda exciting esp because 10+lbs............ I once got into what i would call a frenzzy up in cache where catfish and bass were feeding on crawdads every cast with a jig would result in either a bass or cat...... lasted about 10-15 min amazing how much they muddied up the water yet could still hone in on a jig...
 Gotta love CL "you just never know"
                                                                          LS