Springfield Lake Channel Cats

[Catfish_Confederate]

Anybody know how the bite is? I know it's 'constant' (I've fished by the power plant in 20 degrees) I'm just looking for a good stringer of eatin sized channel cat and I was thinking of going to the lake where I learned to fish. Maybe by the boat ramp or farther up the Dirty Old James...Just curious where they were at? Thanks!

[jim m]

you can still catch some qaulity fish by the powe plant. get away from stink bait,worms, and srimp. you will catch mostly dinks on those baits. try large minows, small perch or even some fresh cut up perch. bite is slower but worth the wait. I like to use large live perch to entice a big flathead

[jbtiwns30]

Ive been catching some between 5 to 10 lbs with shrimp around 830 at night.

[MSUFisherBear]

Ok,

I hate to be that guy, but are you catching them anywhere else in the lake (i.e. out of a boat). I don't like being a snob, but I am a little gunshy about being around a bunch of people flinging large hooks (bad experience). Anyone catching them up in daylight hours?

[usmcgrunt]

Don't worry too much FisherBear. We catfishermen are a lazy bunch and only fling our obscenely large hooks a few times a day lol. As for when and where, try the first fishing dock by the power plant and throw just a little to the left of the current. Most of the ones I've seen caught were in the afternoon and they were using cut suckers and nightcrawlers for the channels and live perch for the flatheads

[MSUFisherBear]

LOL! Thanks for the tip. I've been wanting to catch a mess of 'em. All the rain lately probably really helped a lot of anglers causes when it came to the cats.

[Matt King]

Me and a buddy went out before all the snow hit last week and tore up the cats below the dam. I brought the cast net and netted a bunch of small half dollar sized perch. I caught 3 channels (smallest was 5 pounds) and my buddy caught a real nice 8 pound flathead on a pretty good sized perch. Im thinkin the last snow cooled the water down enough to slow the bite cause I havent caught anything since. Once we start getting some warm days in a row the bite oughta start gaining consistency. Live bait sure is the ticket tho. Seems like all the fish are weary of the ususal worm or stink bait or shrimp. This year oughta be a really good year for fishing compared to the last few.

[usmcgrunt]

The water did cool down quite a bit. Plus with them not running any water for some reason pretty much shut things down. The water temps should be rising again with the warm forecast so the cats should be picking up again soon. Although since the lake is so warm compared to other bodies of water, they may be spawning right now. On most lakes around here they spawn towards the end of May, so in a week or two we should be tearing them up