Catfish fishing around Eugene

[Smokey McFisher]

if your willing to take a little drive, bonniville dam might have some monsters. also i always see people fishing from the shore under the I205 bridge on the oregon side, next to the airport. not sure how good the fishing is there though. my friend and i have been trying to break the oregon state record for channel cat (without much luck so far). if your looking for ideas for baits, just about anyway works, hotdogs, chicken livers, cut up fish chunks, just about anything you can put on your hook really. here is a cool site with tons of baits you can make your self. we have tryed a few, some are just to much for even me to handle.

 

[Fishtopher]

if your willing to take a little drive, bonniville dam might have some monsters. also i always see people fishing from the shore under the I205 bridge on the oregon side, next to the airport. not sure how good the fishing is there though. my friend and i have been trying to break the oregon state record for channel cat (without much luck so far).

hope this helps.

Lots of snags under the 205 bridge! Used to fish it a lot, heck, we fished the whole Big C from Jantzen Beach on up to Cascade Locks on the same "BigCat" mission as you. Your best bet on a big cat will be in one of the pools behind a dam or in front of a dam, at night, in a shallower, slower pool if you can find one. Tried in front of Bonneville at night for some cats and hooked into some serious Walleye!! Watch out for those teeth!! If you are fishing in a spot where there are sturgeon, be carefull and make sure you use barbless hooks, because you will hook strugeon with the same baits!

 

[WBCODYbRNE6n]

John Day River

John Day River

Anyone have experience fishing for catfish of the JD River??

 

[A_J-Llama]

my next door neighbor used to fish JD during the day for Smallies, then at night he'd drop an anchor with bouy out in the river and catch hawg cats. Had to release the anchor line to go down stream and fight the cats they were so big, then run back up and hook up to his anchor line again till the next cat hit. Never got a chance to go with him, so can't say for sure where he was exactly on the JD, but he went several times each yearduring the summer.

 

[Fishtopher]

Had something BIG break me off at the mouth when I was a kid. Caught a bunch of small cats all night and then I get this slack line bite so I reeled up to it, and it took off and never looked back! This fish was peelin my reel dry, so my pops runs over and tightens down the drag real quick, and when he did the fish jerked me forward a little and broke me off. Now I thought I had just lost a record catfish (I was only 9 years old), and my dad only made it worse. Telling me how big this fish was and how he had never seen a fish do that. For years after I bugged dad to take me after that "record cat". As I sit right now, I know that fish was nowhere near a record cat, heck the way it peeled line it probably wasn't even a catfish. But that trip was one of the most special fishing trips my pops ever took me on. Years later I did go back to the same spot, and apparently all the little fish had gone elsewhere, and there was no sign of my record cat.

 

[WBCODYbRNE6n]

Thanks for the info on the John Day. Over the past 3 years I have spent more time fishing for catfish during the months of May, June and July. This started out due to the lack of fishing opportunites to fish for salmon around the Portland area. As long as the gillnets are allowed to fish in the Columbia,
we are all going to have to look for new fishing grounds. I have found that the catfish are very good eating --if you clean them correctly. I have also done a little fishing on the Snake for cats--with good results. I have reserved a week at LePage park on the JD during the month of June--hope to catch some cats. I'm retired so I have lots of time to fish. I like fishing for Sturgeon --when the gillnets aren't in the river. I've tried fishing for Wallyes but, have not had poor luck---I have managed to catch a few Bass. We have had about 3 foot of snow in our driveway for the last 8 days ---which has given me some time to work on my broken eguipment. I've now got everything ready to fish again so I'm just waiting for the snow to melt.

 

[Fish on 7]

They love chicken liver

They love chicken liver

Bullheads and Channel cat will hit well on chicken liver. Also, being new to the area I don't know if it is legal here, but chumming really helps with Catfish. I used to buy the cheapest hot dogs I could find, cut them up and throw them out for chum. I would use two hooks, one with liver, one with hot dogs, liver always works better. I have tried a half dozen different brands of stick bait, chicken liver works better.

 

[jc2it]

Catfish, the Pudding & yamhill Rivers

Catfish, the Pudding & yamhill Rivers

When I was a kid my dad always said the Pudding river was a great place for catfish. However, I do not even see it listed in the synopsis, so I am unsure when and if you can fish it anymore. Also, my wife's grandpa said the yamhill used to have catfish, but he hadn't fished it since he was a kid (~65 years ago?).

 

[ol tymer]

Why shore! Cat fishin' is mucho fun!

Why shore! Cat fishin' is mucho fun!

Best bait I ever used was white crawdad tails. Used to find irrigation ditches and made myself a little seine, scooped up a few crawdads, then went fishin'. Caught mostly blues and yellows. One time I was trolling for anything that would bite, in the San Joaquin river with a 6" rebel lure. Got a nice strike, set the hook, and reeled in a nice fat, you guessed it, catfish! Kind of a pleasin' surprise, it was. Even heard tell they'd strike a fly! Magine that! Anyway, lots o' luck tryin' yer hand at it. It's actually a very good eating fish, in my poorly opinion. Ol-tymer

 

[Fishtopher]

PM sent...

Just kiddin'...


Hahaha! Umm...you should probably check a different web site. Of all the places...you pick a fishing forum. In a Catfish thread.:lol:

 

[Hawk]

Best bait I ever used was white crawdad tails. Used to find irrigation ditches and made myself a little seine, scooped up a few crawdads, then went fishin'. Caught mostly blues and yellows. One time I was trolling for anything that would bite, in the San Joaquin river with a 6" rebel lure. Got a nice strike, set the hook, and reeled in a nice fat, you guessed it, catfish! Kind of a pleasin' surprise, it was. Even heard tell they'd strike a fly! Magine that! Anyway, lots o' luck tryin' yer hand at it. It's actually a very good eating fish, in my poorly opinion. Ol-tymer

Lustrums ago i fished the San Joaquin River, Pajaro River, Delta/Mendota concrete canal, CA Aquaduct concrete canal. I caught Channel Cat, Mud Cat, etc & Striped Bass. My favorite bait was Pileworms & also a little bait fish i caught by the canal gates. We called them a bullhead but i don't know what their technical name was. The big fish loved them.............................:lol::lol::lol:

 

[ol tymer]

bullheads!

bullheads!

Yeah, used to catch little bullheads out near the first buoy near Emeryville, then use em' fer bait fishin' fer stripers in the bay. Great fun! Ol Tymer

 

[Hawk]

Yeah, used to catch little bullheads out near the first buoy near Emeryville, then use em' fer bait fishin' fer stripers in the bay. Great fun! Ol Tymer

.............................


We c&r many big'un stripers in San Luis Res & Forebay. Also where the CA Aquaduct comes into the forebay........................:lol::lol::lol:...............catfish too


I followed the Delta/Mendota canal from the Delta to over by Firebaugh............................

 

[Smokey McFisher]

couple Q's here, as im really new to catfishin'.....first off, im in salem, and dont want to go very far, where would a good spot be to check out for some cats? my friend has been wanting to try the dock downtown salem, where the sternwheeler dinner ship thing is. we have fished minto brown, under the downtown bridge and i tryed mill creek once with no luck and a lot of snags

also if someone could tell me best time of day for them to bite that would be great. my buddy wants to sit out till midnight, he says they bite more at night, but unless someone knows that to be true i would rather not freeze my butt off for nothing lol. any help would be great. oh yea and we will be using chicken livers, crawdad tails and whole ones (only from same water) and some homemade bates and doughs.

 

[Drew9870]

Well for catfish the best place I could recommend and it may sound strange but Detroit Lake has the most catfish I have ever known about in my life, (except for the snake river ) but the thing is in Oregon, the main catfish is the Brown Bullhead (not the Sculpin aka bullhead which looks like a baby lingcod) which does not get big at all, the biggest I have caught out of Detroit was probably 12 inches. Always fish at night for catfish or early early morning, (I mean before the sun even comes into sight). Worms are the most effective and I always use a whole nightcrawler on a #1 hook with a slide sinker rig, but there are so many catfish in Detroit that your going to want about 6 boxes of worms..... :lol: Trust me

As far as fishing around salem for catfish, For big catfish I actually think the Riverfront park could be a good idea as the biggest of catfish do grow in rivers. And I would try using a piece of chicken liver in the Willamette because every time I use a worm at the riverfront all I ever catch is sculpin.

Also walter wirth is known to hold some giants :think: sounds strange, but the biggest catfish I have caught in Walter Wirth was probably :lol: 4 inches

 

[ol tymer]

salem area catfish

salem area catfish

Hey yall: Some areas yall might wanta try are the Brown-Minto Island Complex (the borrow pits & sloughs). Sposed to have the brown bullhead catfish. Another is Horseshoe Lake for the brown bullhead and also channel cats. St. Louis ponds for channels, the Willamette river sloughs for both species, Walter Wirth lake, and Woodburn pond. Nite fishin' is probably the best. Just set yer pole in a holder and put a little bell on the end of it. Then ya don't havta continually watch yer pole. A little waggle, yer bell will tinkle, and you can set the hook. Worms, chicken livers should do the trick. Be sure and let us know how ya do. Ol Tymer

 

[Hawk]

I've c&r (kept some) a lot of catfish during the day, more at night, especially in the summer when the water is warmer.

We took our ol' American Clipper class C motorhome campin'/fishin'/booniedockin'........................... I would drive a poleholder into the ground, bungy cord the rod to the holder, put a bell on the rod tip, go back into the mh relax or lay down till the bell went.............ding ding dong........................................:lol::lol::lol:

Our favorite bait is PileWorms but also use nightcrawlers, cut pieces of anchovie, turkey or chicken liver (put pieces of liver out in the sun to firmup a bit. we wrapped sewing thread around liver to keep on hook better, sometimes)

Happy fishin'...........................

 

[Catch/Eat?Release]

You sound like you know what you are talking about. A while ago a friend of mine, deceased now, told me that he knew a woman who lived in the town of Detroit, near the lake and that she would watch the "other side", whatever that meant, in the spring and that the catfish would come in to spawn. I think it was in April, May, or June and that where she was talking about you could see gravel beds and that it was shallow enough that you could see the fish. They described them as looking like part of the bottom in a large brown mass because there were so many massed in the area. I have scouted the lake and it looks to me that they were talking about an area of access through the town to a parking area (gravel) with a couple picnic tables and in front of that the water is shallow but wide and you can see the bottom. My friend said he set up a lawn chair and his pole, cooler for bait and his cooler for beer and that the action on worms was so hectic that he had to keep his line in in order to be able to drink a beer!!! I know he went numerous times but never connected with him to get better details. He stated that, and he wasn't a BS artist, he caught nearly 300 nice size catfish and that the cleaning was tedious and long but that they were delicious. Personally, I think they are one of the best eating fish around depending on the quality of the water they come out of. If you are aware of this spot or know anything more of it let us know on your blog. I will also as I am hep to scope this out this year and score some good fish. Catch/Eat?Release

 

[Oregonchris]

Detroit CATFISH
Catfish anglers concentrate their efforts in the shallow north
end portion of the lake known as “the flats”. Normal catfish
fare includes worms, shrimp or other baits commonly known
as “stink baits”. Fishing for these bottom-dwellers often is
done late at night, from late spring throughout the summer, but
is particularly good on hot nights over 70 degrees.

 

[Catch/Eat?Release]

That is the area I was indicating when I scouted there. It is very shallow and you can see the bottom. I was after the time frame as to when my friend was going as the fish were kegged up there for spawn I assume. Thank you for the reply, CER