While Cats will dine on decaying carrion if it is accessible, in most rivers and lakes they are top of the line predators. It has taken years of experimenting to find out how to catch Cats consistently on flies and it has been a great and continuing learning experience.Ĭhannel Cats are bottom feeders that eat nothing but decaying carrion. That short lived fight lit a fire under my waders that has never gone out and also made me realize that there is a lot more to Channel Cats than what I thought. Slap me silly and call me Grandma! I couldn’t believe what had just happened and had to console myself by reminiscing on the great casting practice I had that day. With my mouth open and lapping at the muddy Red all I could do was look in awe as the fish swam awaywith my fly line and 100 yards of backing trailing behind it. HA! The one fish I was lucky to hook spooled me and broke my backing at the jam knot against my reel’s arbour. and got into my fly fishing gear and rigged up my 7 weight and thought, “Big enough for these Cats”.
I got to the Red River, at the town of Lockport at 4:00 P.M. It happened back in 1976 and I was 20 years old at the time and feeling that my angling prowess was on the verge of world renown what 20 year old doesn’t think they know everything that is until that fateful June afternoon. The first time I went out for Cats was a lesson in humility.
But let me say this about the Channel Cat, they are a hoot! No you are not misreading this, you can catch Channel Cats on the fly and they are every bit as challenging as any other species. However, I’ll bet that every flyfisherman has heard of Channel Catfish, although I would suspect it is at the bottom of their Fish to Catch on a fly rod list. Ictalurus Punctatus, two Latin words fly fisherman never hear.
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