greenhornet73

I was just watching a fishing show earlier in the week and they were catching flatheads in the Colorado River close to 80 lbs. while trolling crankbaits. I know we also have channel cats around here but not sure of blue cats. I have caught them while trolling dixie spinners on oneida lake in the deepest areas while walleye fishing. You can catch cats with dead bait and"stink baits" like chicken livers and homemade concoctions. I have friends that fish for them in the Seneca River this way. None of these techniques would be used to catch a bucket- full of bullheads, at least where I fish.

Bullhead and catfish are in the same family but different species. It would be like fishing for perch and walleye the same way. It could work but if you are focusing on one then you need to adjust your location/ presentation certain times of year. Bullhead are spawning now which is why they are so popular this time of year but have never caught a catfish while bullhead fishing except for 1 channel cat a few years ago that took me for a ride.

the thread is titled "catfish" but then asked about bullhead locations. Still not sure at this point what fish we are supposed to be talking about here

Congrats, awesome morning. Gotta love those Rogue's

The boat launch at Pine Grove off rte 3 looks like a great spot to me. I scoped it out last fall when launching my kayak and it looks like a great bullhead spot to me. I have much closer spots to me so I probably won't be trying it but if you are in the area it is all sand with tall vegetation and shallow water off the bank.

Nah, I can handle cold but not the wind. 2 Dramamine last week almost wasn't enough. My 'yak is in the sling until the Sunday after Easter so the water should be warmed up much better by then. Hopefully the third time is a charm and I can actually Land a brown this year.

Sorry I meant entry "fee"

I always launch right from the beach on the east side of the channel in the park, shortest walk to the lake from the parking lot. You could also drop in at the pond and paddle through the channel to the lake, just be mindful of the low bridge if you have your poles vertical. There is no entry fee into the park until Memorial Day.

Krux, trolling for browns in the spring doesn't take many gadgets and can be done by just flat lining with floating/ shallow running stickbaits so all you need are a few rod holders on your boat and reels with decent capacity for 10lb test.

Yeah and the wind conditions have been mild enough to allow me to get a few hours in each trip. My blood pressure has dropped for sure after some good quiet, slow trolling.

When is someone else gonna come out here and show me how to catch a fish?! I went out again and found a nice mud line but warmest surface water this week was 39.4. My rods fired 3 times in the same pocket of water 8' deep but came up empty each time. Trolled all sticks mostly except for 1 stinger spoon with a couple split shots. Only 1 other boat out there that looked like it came out of the West. Been nice and quiet fishing these past 2 weeks but a little too quiet without the drags screamin'.

you do raise a good point there pap, especially since March snow tends to be the wet, heavy stuff and not the blow out of your hand kind. Glad my "boat" is back up in the sling in my garage until next Sunday

Yep, I remember when that happened one spring about 8 years ago when I went out for a test run with a charter captain friend out of Oswego and we ended up running into a pod of kings and landed 5 or 6 of them up to 20lbs. What a blast that was. i never did end up going for browns that spring

Not the results I was hoping for but I did catch an awesome sunrise at least and got the gear in working order.

I fished Fair Haven this morning from 7am -9:30 and the pond and Little Sodus are ice free with no more ice chunks floating in the lake. There was a lot of floating debris though and was hard to keep it off the hooks. Temps ranged from 39.0 - 42.2 between 6 and 11 fow and got 2 strikes in the warmest zones and dropped both. I threw all my sticks at em but nothing drew them in. Both hits came on a smithwick and the 2nd made such a mess of my lines I packed it in. Trolling with 2 rods out of the kayak with 100' of line out combined with a stiff NE wind made landing a fish difficult but didn't have enough confidence in any 1 lure to run it alone. It was nice to get out though and I got 6 passes in before the wind really picked up and there wasn't another boat on the water.

I don't go out without a life jacket on, even if it's 90 degrees out. All of my fish pictures are taken from shore since I usually fish alone and have someone take a photo when I get to shore.

Nice fish, how was the wind out there today?

Please don't run over the red kayak out there tomorrow morning!

To put things into perspective for this year, I was out in my kayak trolling alone last year on April 12th and was dodging those ice chucks coming out of the chute while the ramp was still frozen in. That puts us a month ahead of last year.