Grand Lake Blue Catfish Teaching Trip

We did a teaching trip on how to catch blue catfish at Grand Lake in Oklahoma.  We started the day out going over how to throw a cast net for shad and where to throw.  Catching bait was easy, catching the bigger baits that stay on the hook was not so easy.

We spent the majority or our time learning sonar and going over seasonal patterns.  The fish were very scattered and not very active today.  This has been a very unseasonably warm December and the fish have not migrated to wintering areas yet.

We did spend a little time anchored up on a windblown cove catching a few active fish.  This good eating size blue catfish took a bait that he couldn’t quite get fully into his mouth.

Next, we spend some time using the MinnKota trolling motor dragging baits through suspended blue catfish.

 

 

Oologah Lake – Blue Catfish

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been on the water and boy was it good to get back out there.  Between hunting, Thanksgiving, and remodeling a bathroom it was time to get back on the water and see if the fish were back on a consistent pattern.

The crappie were slow…really slow this morning.  They decided to start releasing 15,000 out and shut the bite down, so we caught bait and started dragging deep water for blue catfish that were busting up bait balls.  I started marking good shad in the river channel at the edge of a point.  As I came up out of the river channel from 55ft of water to water in the 40ft range the bait was getting busted up with nice arches under and mixed in.  We circled back and set up a controlled drift to drag baits with the MinnKota trolling motor.  I started drifting at .7mph and we got a couple of taste testers, but they wouldn’t commit and take the bait.  So, I lowered out speed to .5mph and that did the trick.  The right long line rod slammed down and peeled drag making it very difficult for Brandon to get out of the rod holder.  This blue had an attitude and did not want to get in the ProCat with us…but Brandon won the battle!

After a couple of fish on that drift, we decided to do some scouting and check on the spoonbill/paddlefish.  The Oologah Lake spoonbill are all stacked up and ready in their usual locations this time of year.  Next Sunday, we’ll get after them…but back to searching for other areas for blue catfish.

We decided to use the Humminbird side scan and locate fish in the long expanses of Oologah Lake’s shallow water since the south wind picked up and should be moving these fish into feeding areas…it did.  We looked in really shallow water, but the the higher concentrations were using road beds and ditches to travel.  We would set up just off of these areas after marking on side scan and cast towards the fish.  FISH ON!  We’d catch a handful in an area and then move on looking for another group.  I’m sure we could have set there and waited for the next group to move through as blue catfish often do, but we really wanted to keep trying other areas that we hadn’t fished or at least not fished in some time.  Oologah is a big lake with lots of structure and its a blast using the graph locating new areas or areas forgotten to find new groups of fish.

Brandon said he cleaned 17 nice eating sized blues and we released all the fish over 10 pounds to continue making baby blues so we have plenty to catch for years to come.

 

We had a 3 boat trip today with young men from a Boy Scout troop in Kansas. Their troop came down to Keystone Lake for camping and fishing fun.

It was a tough bite today with calm water and blue bird skies.  We caught the majority of our fish anchored in less than 3 feet of water on fresh gizzard shad.  The gar have moved in by the thousands in the deeper water around that area.  Big fish was around twelve pounds and we caught about fifteen good keepers for them a mess of fish.  We spent a good majority of the time taking the kids on a boat ride.  They loved sitting in the front of the boat going across the lake.
They are going to enjoy a fish fry around the camp fire tonight!!!
The blue catfish bite will only get better as the water cools down.

Blue Catfish and Flathead Catfish on Copan Lake

My kids decided they wanted fish for dinner tonight, so we made a quick run to our closest lake, Copan, to catch dinner.  I also wanted to try the transducer placement of the Humminbird 1199 that I installed.  We arrived about 12:30 and scanned the lake for a couple of hours trying out the Humminbird and also caught bait.

We set up to drag baits and quickly started putting blue catfish from 2-5 pounds in the boat for dinner.  We were dragging baits with the MinnKota Terrova going .5-.7mph and we had just a slight breeze from the west.  Depths ranged from 22-32ft deep.

My daughter who is generally more content watching someone else catch the fish decided she wanted to catch learn how(proud dad moment).  Without going into too many details to make it confusing, I told her to reel as fast as she can and leave the rod in the rod holder if a rod goes down.  A couple minutes later as I was rigging another rod, I look up and she’s reeling down on a nice blue catfish!!!  She is excited to catch dinner and I’m a proud dad!  Thank you Team Catfish Double Action Hooks for doing their job and making my daughters first attempt at hooking a catfish successful.  She hooked a couple more to get us enough for dinner tonight!

My wife and I decided we had about 10 more minutes to fish when a rod looked like it got tangled in some trash or something.  It just went down a little as we were dragging along.  Then I noticed it was going to the right, so I reeled down to bury the Double Action hook.  I quickly found out it was a heavy fish.  My kids wanted daddy to reel it in….if I have to :).  It came up and went back to the bottom three times.  What fish fights like that…..Flathead!!!!   A quick net job by my wife and my kids got to see a nice flathead.  It weighed 38 pounds.  A nice solid fish to end a nice family day on the lake.  We said good by as we let the flathead go back and hunt in the depths of Copan Lake.  Time to clean fish and go cook dinner!

 

Oologah Lake in Oklahoma Fishing for Blue Catfish

The blue catfish were in transition as a cold front moved in today.  We started out fishing a creek channel in 8-12ft of water.  Rods quickly slammed down with a couple of really nice blue catfish that we marked on side image along the channel edges.  Then the bite shut down as the north wind started gusting.  We tried fishing trees, creek channels, river ledges, deep flats, and wind blown areas.  Each pattern would produce a couple of fish and lots of taste testers.  The fish lacked commitment today.  After going back and graphing a couple areas we had been to earlier I realized the situation, the fish were on a major migration and not looking to eat, but in migration mode with the front coming in.  The creeks channels were loaded with fish that were traveling fast when they were barren hours earlier.  I ventured to a couple of areas where I marked blue catfish earlier to find them gone.  All in all we had a decent day, just had to work harder than normal to fill the live well.  I did get to share lots of info with Steve and his wife for their own adventure on their home lakes.  We had lots of fun and look forward to the next trip with these two.

Drifting for Blue Catfish on Grand Lake with Gus and Family

The crisp fall air had the blue catfish excited to eat breakfast this morning!  The girls stuck it to the boys today.  The girls caught the most, biggest, and smallest fish for the sweep of the friendly competition for the day.  This group was a blast to have on the boat.

All fish caught drifting .5-.7mph.  We used fresh cut gizzard shad and they preferred the tails today for some reason.  I don’t normally use the tails but gave it a try today and that was the ticket!!!  The girls figured out how to do a long sweeping hook increasing their hookup ratio today using 8/0 Double Action Hooks from Team Catfish.  When on anchor we usually reel down on the fish, but when drifting a long sweeping hook set has worked better.

Water temp was 70 degrees today.  As the water cools down, the blue catfish bite picks up!  Be sure and find the bait that is broken up with blue cat arches below feeding on them.  If there is too much bait on the screen and they aren’t broken up keep looking.

I’ve got several weekend openings the next couple of months if anyone wants to get in on some good fishing or learn how.

www.lancesguideservice.com

918-607-7357

Oologah Lake Crappie and White Bass 10/15/15

Today, I had the Berlin’s out for a beautiful day crappie fishing on Oologah Lake in Oklahoma.  We got an early start since it was going to get up to the lower 90’s today.  (It is October…right?!?!?!?!)  We started the morning out with slick water and cool temps.  The brush piles were not holding fish like they had been.  We managed a few keepers the first couple of hours and a few crappie too small to go in the ice chest.  We also caught blue catfish, channel catfish, sunfish, and a variety of sizes of largemouth bass.  Not really what we were looking for.  The wind picked up to a light ripple on the water and we decided to look at drifting for blue catfish if the wind cooperated.  Well…it died down as soon as we decided to switch gears.  We hit a couple more piles with only short fish.  We headed back to the brush pile we started the morning at and saw a laying on the bottom.  It had about a dozen marks on it and we caught 9 of them.  On one end of the pile were crappie and the other white bass.  It was a slow beautiful day on Oologah Lake.  The Berlin’s were my middle school teachers and have gone on trips with me the last 3 years and we always have a blast.  Thank you for the good time!

Lake Carl Blackwell Fishing for Crappie and Hybrid Striper with Friends

We met our best friends and neighbors from college at Lake Carl Blackwell for camping and fishing fun!!!  We got there and Kent and Konya already had the steaks on the grill.  Our kids quickly started playing and we had a relaxing evening catching up.

Friday morning brought on a drastic change in temperatures as a cool front came in.  We bundled the kids up for a little fun on the boat.  We managed to get KK his first hybrid striper quickly on a tailspinner on a very windy point and a couple more white bass.  The kids and wives had enough of the cold wind after about an hour and they wanted to go in, so Kent and I went back out to play the rest of the day.  We never really found a good concentration of willing hybrid striper, so we went to a couple of calmer water brush piles to feel the thump of old mister crappie.  First pile had a couple of small crappie and a keeper.  Our next stop was some old wood and it had what we were looking for, nice 11-12 inch crappie.  All caught on orange jigs.  The lake is turning over and has foam all along the shoreline making for stained water.  We had a great time and took our catch proudly back to the cabins to have a fish fry.

Same pattern the next morning wetting jigs on brush in 12-16ft of water.  Water temp 69 degrees.

This is Kent’s first crappie ever!!!

 

 

Hudson Lake teaching trip focusing on patterns for white bass, crappie, spoonbill paddlefish, and blue catfish with Lance’s Guide Service.

Long time customer, Joe, booked a teaching trip on his home lake.  I have never been on Hudson before, but told him we’d see what we can find out.  Joe’s wife had breakfast ready at their cabin when I got there…very nice surprise!  After good food we got in the Procat and went looking around his area of the lake.  It is much like Fort Gibson, river lake that can go from 40ft deep to zero in a hurry with stumps, rocks, ect.

We focused on talking about patterns of blue catfish, white bass, crappie, and spoonbill paddlefish.  We drove and scanned about half of the lake marking brush piles, points, feeding flats, and prime ledges.  We also spent a good amount of time on sonar and mapping 101.

It was a great day to do a teaching trip and get to see another lake I’ve never been on with great people.  We even got to see a bald eagle swoop down and have an afternoon snack.

Fishing Oologah Lake in Oklahoma for Crappie and Blue Catfish with the Madison guys

Today, I had Larry Madison and his two boys for a trip on Oologah Lake.  We started the day catching crappie on new brush in 12-16ft of water.  The keeper crappie preferred minnows today.  They fished minnows and I fished jigs…they caught the good fish and I had a dink fest, lol!!!

After we caught a decent mess of crappie, it was time to switch gears and catch some blue catfish.  We turned the OU football game on, marked some fish in 20-35ft of water and started drifting baits at .5-.7mph.  It didn’t take long for a rod to get slammed and Mr. Blue Catfish to enter the cooler.  The wind never did blow enough for the blues to get stacked up together and the bite was fairly slow, but we did get plenty for them a nice family dinner.  It did get a little quite as the Sooners failed to show up and were defeated by Texas.

All in all it was a great day on the water with good people and beautiful weather!!!