Pt. Marion angler lands lunker flathead catfish in Cheat River
Too hot to go fishing? You know it!
That is unless you plan to go for catfish.
Since trout season ended local sportsmen’s clubs have been stocking channel cats to give members a reason to get out of the hammock.
On July 14, Ray Johnson Jr. of Point Marion and a couple of his buddies went fishing in the Cheat River after finishing up the midnight shift at Mylan Laboratories in Morgantown.
They drove up the Cheat to fish near the outflow on the dam, and about 9:45 in the morning, Johnson hooked into the catch of a lifetime – a flathead catfish that weighed nearly 40 pounds.
The large cat took a two-inch minnow.
“The river was high and we didn’t know whether to go or not as the water was up with all the rain,” Johnson said. “We finally decided to give it a try and ended up going to fish.”
“We usually catch channels,” Johnson. “I wasn’t set up for a big flathead. I was using a six-foot, medium action bass pole with 12-pound test line. He gave me all I could handle. I worked him from the outflow area down to the river, where by buddy netted him for me.”
While he did not weigh his catch, Johnson said, “I worked in a meat shop for years. I would guess he weighed 35 to 40 pounds.”
Johnson and his buddies fish the spot frequently and “catch quite a few catfish.”
The hydro plant on the outflow was not running when they arrived, and the fish were biting. They caught walleye, sauger and bass before Johnson hooked into the large cat.
While he has caught “two-footers” in the past, Johnson said he was really surprised by the size of his lunker.
After getting his picture taken with the catfish, Johnson released it into the Cheat River.
Johnson only fishes the Cheat River occasionally, but he and his buddies fish Cheat Lake quite frequently, where they have been catching numerous 16-inch perch under the bridge.
Summer heat waves such as the one we’ve been caught up in usually turn off most fish, but catfish seem to turn on as the water warms up. They tend to just lounge around and eat.
After they leave the safety of their holes on the banks of ponds and lakes and the shorelines of streams and rivers, the sometimes-monstrous creatures of the deep cruise about in search of food.
I used to believe that the best time to fish for catfish was after dark, but over the years I have caught as many during daylight hours as I have by the light of the moon, and Johnson’s catch proved that they bite when they’re hungry, day or night.
A few years ago we were fishing for big blues at Santee Cooper in South Carolina, and we did as well during mid afternoon as we did at night.
Another thing I learned about catching big cats was to use stout lines and taunt them with large baits.
We purchased 10- to 12-inch herring at the bait shop and cut them in half, placing half on our hook at a time.
We caught blues on the bottom but could only get into 10-pounders, which were considered small by local standards, where real blues were the ones that weighed 30 pounds or more.
Channel and flathead catfish put up one heck of the fight, and the bigger they are the more they fight.
Bullheads, on the other hand, often hit hard and then settle back to the bottom with the bait firmly locked in their jaws, leaving the fisherman wondering if they are hooked or not.
They often lay still for quite a while until you start to reel in to check the bait and then they begin to fight.
Bullheads taken from clean lakes were a favorite of my Father and his fishing buddies for table fare.
We caught channels and bullheads from the Monongahela River but usually threw most of them back as the river was very polluted in those days. The water not only had a foul smell, but it changed color often.
Even the fish smelled and tasted of fuel oil and some unknown chemicals. Even with the Mon cleaned up from what it used to be, the Fish and Boat Commission still tells anglers not to eat channel cats because of large concentrations of chlordane, so I would guess that flatheads are not good to eat either.
For that reason we only eat catfish we caught in lakes such as Dutch Fork, the Youghiogheny Reservoir and Lake Somerset, plus a few local fishing club and farm ponds.
Locally the Youghiogheny River is a good place to catch a few catfish for the table. Catfish caught from lakes and streams that are stocked with trout are also usually safe to eat.
We always went to catch catfish. Eating them was secondary.
The Mon was just starting to turn when I last fished there with my Father.
Channel and bullheads were what we fished for back then, but since then the flathead made its way south from the Ohio River and is now most popular among catfish anglers who just fish for sport.
Bait can run from a lively minnow or a cluster of nightcrawlers to many types of catfish stink baits.
I used to allow old freezer-burned meat to “ripen” in the sun and use it for bait, but from what I read, that may not have been necessary. It is not the smell that triggers the fish to bite but some chemical in the bait that excites them.
When I was a kid, my Dad would give me and dollar bill and send me into the A&P to buy a pound of shrimp for bait for around 69 cents.
It worked when we didn’t have time to get crayfish, which didn’t produce great results anyhow.
We think of bullheads as bottom feeders but I once had one take a crankbait while I was fishing for bass, and someone told me they caught one a spinnerbait.
Tackle should be of the stouter nature. I too have caught many catfish on bass and walleye rigs, but after fishing Santee Cooper, I learned that bigger is better. If I go after some of the “big boys” I’ve seen swimming about, I will use my saltwater rod, which is heavy enough to haul good-sized fish many feet onto a fishing pier.
While not the most-attractive fish, large catfish are fun to catch, and landing a near-record behemoth will make anyone’s day.
The National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame lists records for catfish as follows: blue cat, 109 pounds, 4 ounces taken in 1991; channel cat, 58 pounds, taken in 1964 and flatheads, 92 pounds, 4 ounces, taken in 1995.
Bullheads also get fairly large.
The largest black bullhead on record in 8 pounds, 15 ounces, caught in 1982, and the biggest yellow bullhead ever recorded was caught in 1989. It weighed four pounds, 8 ounces.
The Pennsylvania state channel cat record of 35 pounds, 2 ounces was set in 1991, and the top flathead, which was taken in the Allegheny River in 1985, weighed 43 pounds, 9 ounces.
West Virginia’s record bullhead weighed 6.1 pounds. It was taken in the Tygart Lake headwaters. The largest channel cat on record in the Mountain State weighted 33.38 pounds, but the state record for a flathead catfish is 70 pounds. The lunker was caught in the Little Kanawha River.
Remember! A bad day cat fishing always beats a good day at work.
Rod Schoener is the Herald-Standard outdoors editor.