Idaho kitties

[Shoemoo]

After getting skunked at the big reservoir fishing for crappie the week before, I went out fishing for cats at one of the local ponds. This pond is so small and shallow it warms up faster than the other bodies of water around here so I've had good luck there during the early season in the past.

Temps started out in the upper 70s before a brutal windstorm blew in about half an hour after I got there. Braved the 45+ MPH gusts to catch five channel cats and a small (but big for this pond) largemouth. I wasn't using jigs, but it was just nice to get out.

The ones in the second pic hit simultaneously. It's not easy landing two cats alone with no net in a ripping windstorm. For scale, those are 12" boards.









It's legal to keep the fish and there is no limit on cats, but I released them all since there is no natural reproduction in this pond and there have only been around 200 cats stocked in the last three years. If everyone had days like this and kept the fish, it wouldn't be long before there were none left.

 

[JUNGLEJIM1]

Nice channels, they're fun to catch. It doesn't take much to mess up small lakes and ponds and upset the balance. Good idea releasing those.

 

[LedHed]

Congrats on the catch and release. Excellent fishing report - thnx

 

[Fatman]

Nice mess of kitties and they make good eating too!!!!!!

 

[Shoemoo]

Yup, they fight pretty hard, they're not fussy when it comes to food, and they taste great. What more could any angler ask for? I still have some fillets in the freezer from last year. This little pond is so small (not even 5 acres) they don't have enough spots to lay their eggs so the young survive. The department of wildlife actually sends an electrofishing boat out to the Snake River (where they reproduce naturally) and collects a bunch during the summer when it's too hot for trout to survive stocking. Then they transplant them to the smaller lakes around Boise, which is how they ended up in this pond.

There's some real monster cats in the Snake, since there aren't many people who target them. They're mostly a bycatch when people fish for sturgeon. I fish there occasionally, but it's a bit further and the river water is still pretty cold.

 

[Jig Man]

Looks like a great day of fishing... And hats off to your wildlife managers.

 

[Fatman]

At least there's a few FW managers that know what they're doing!!!! This new one in Vermont is PITA who doesn't like to hear the whole truth!!!!! The old one who retired everyone knew and you could walk up to him on the street and start gabbing, and a couple of days a month he'd be out with different Wardens and talk to folks while they were fishing and seeing what kinds of problems were out there.

 

[StumpHunter]

Couple of good size cats, congrats

 

[Hawnjigs]

That 2 footer is a chunk! I think maybe colder clean water cats taste better - not real experienced but Wyoming catfish tasted better than Nebraska. I'll bet Snake River cats are ono!

 

[Radtexan]

Nice work Shoe,,bet they were fun..

 

[AtticaFish]

Some nice cats there!