Last week I caught my first ever channel cat on the Jordan River. What a blast that was! I wasn’t expecting to catch one as I was only fishing with my telescopic ultralite. It took me at least five minutes to bring him in. I couldn’t believe the fight. It was a rush! Now I’m hooked and want to catch more. I’ve been back to the Jordan River three times since then. But I’ve managed to catch everything but a channel cat since. All my research hasn’t helped out much. It seems like a somewhat easy species to target. I’ve seen posts about the Jordan River channel cats and it seems people catch them with some ease. I feel like I’m missing something crucial in my hunt for the cats. I’ve been using a carolina slip rig with a worm and large hook. I feel the spots I’ve been hitting seem like prime catfish spots according to what I’ve researched on this forum and other sources. Obviously we can’t always catch what we want when we want. But I feel a little lost. The Jordan is definitely a different body of water to fish.
Anywho, if anyone feels compelled enough to offer me some channel cat advice on this thread or pm I would surely appreciate it. I don’t want your hard earned secrets. Just a point in the right sirection.
Here is a picture of the channel cat I caught. I’m uploading this from my phone so if it doesn’t work I will have to try again when I get home from work.
Thanks!
Thats a good looking cat there. as far as the jordan goes look for bends in the river, holes, some kind of structure. White bass, sucker meat, carp, liver, shrimp is all good baits to try. I seem to have more luck in the evening than the morning too.
catchin compay pretty much covered it
I have caught most of my catfish at the saratoga springs park near the pump house. Here is a 22 inch, 4 and a half pound channel catfish.
I fish the jordan river 2-3 times a week. This year the bull heads/mudcats out number the channels I been catching. Worms will help you catch alot of fish in the jordan but dont help if you just want to catch channels. One suggested on this forum to use a 1 size hook with about 3 worms to get the bigger catfish which are usually channels. So far its just netted bigger bullheads. I think just give it a couple more weeks and try fishing chub minnows, white bass meat, chicken liver sacks,fresh shrimp, on the bottom near brush, bends or water that looks to be slow moving. closer to shores more than the middle of the river. If the water is slow enough I like to find the deepest part closest to shore and float a worm, or whatever bait you are using. I caught a nice size channel that way this year by floating my bait near a fallen tree it was the biggest fish I caught this year so far. In the mean time just keep trying, the more time out there you spend the more likely you are to land a bigger fish. Things definetly will be better when the weather is going to be hot everyday like all through July and August…
I caught two 4lbers and starkinkade got a 7 or 8 lber out of the river with minnows! cut them in half
That’s a nice catfish, catfishkid.
Thank you all for the advice! This was extremely helpful.
It sounds like I’m fishing the right types of places based on your tips but I may need to change up my bait and hooks. I’ve tried worms and white bass meat with no success so far. I’ll give the other baits a try. I hope it starts to perk up some more with the rising temps. I’ve been primarily fishing the 12300 S. area and on a occasion 4800 and 7200. There is a few other spots I would like to try such as the pumphouse area. I’ll be hitting the river a couple more times Friday and Saturday so wish me luck!
bigger pieces of bait and bigger hooks!
all of these were out of the Jordan this year!
Last week I caught my first ever channel cat on the Jordan River. What a blast that was! I wasn’t expecting to catch one as I was only fishing with my telescopic ultralite. It took me at least five minutes to bring him in. I couldn’t believe the fight. It was a rush! Now I’m hooked and want to catch more. I’ve been back to the Jordan River three times since then. But I’ve managed to catch everything but a channel cat since. All my research hasn’t helped out much. It seems like a somewhat easy species to target. I’ve seen posts about the Jordan River channel cats and it seems people catch them with some ease. I feel like I’m missing something crucial in my hunt for the cats. I’ve been using a carolina slip rig with a worm and large hook. I feel the spots I’ve been hitting seem like prime catfish spots according to what I’ve researched on this forum and other sources. Obviously we can’t always catch what we want when we want. But I feel a little lost. The Jordan is definitely a different body of water to fish.
Anywho, if anyone feels compelled enough to offer me some channel cat advice on this thread or pm I would surely appreciate it. I don’t want your hard earned secrets. Just a point in the right sirection.
Here is a picture of the channel cat I caught. I’m uploading this from my phone so if it doesn’t work I will have to try again when I get home from work.
Thanks!
That’s a beautiful looking fish man congratulations!
ill be hitting the river friday at 2-5 in the saratoga area. I know some really good spots out here message if you want my number and ill text ya my location and i can show you some awesome spots
ya those big kittys can be very addicting like a drug. i had a good spot on the jordan and it has slowed down for me so i tried between 4500 south and about 5200 south in salt lake, it was real good for panfish, blugills, crappies, white bass etc but no channels, maybe i need to hit the hotspring by the pumphouse this week.
tightlines
After having posted this I was inspired to hit the Jordan after work. I got there around 8. I didn’t change my setup from the slip carolina rig and a worm. I didn’t have time to go to the store to pick up shrimp or anything like that. It turned out to be really hot fishing. I had both poles in the water and had bites instantly. I ended up with 3 suckers, a carp and a mudcat. Plus MANY missed hooksets. I also managed two channel cats! Finally! I think I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The fish were extremely active in this location due to so many bugs on the water. This location had more bugs on the surface than any of the other locations I walked by. The fish were feeding like crazy!
Anyway back to the channel cats. They weren’t anywhere close to size or strength of my first one but they fought good. One was roughly 16 inches while the other was closer to 10 inches. Nothing crazy. I kept the bigger one. My friend has been trying to get me to keep a channel cat so I can eat one. So I brought it to his house where he was nice enough to filet and fry it! It was my first time trying catfish and it was delicious! Now I have a new reason for fishing for them [;)]. I will be hitting the Jordan again soon to try out some of the new baits suggested to me here!
And pictures included!
Hello I’m “the friend” I literally just joined I have been reading occasionally for a while now.I have been posting on the UWN with the same user name so some of you may know me. I only refrained from joining another forum cause I thought I would try and control my fishing addiction! Instead I choose to embrace it ans let it spiral out of control! [sly]
Welcome to the forum man…bout time you made the switch. I think you will come to like this place better with time.