Spawning Blues in late June?

I fished Buchanan this past weekend. My dad, son, me and the 45 gallon sunshine bait tank went out to catch striped fish with live perch. We caught catfish instead on top of a mid lake hump in 35 fow.

I didn't realize it until the cleaning table, but almost all of the fish looked to be small males. The largest cat (maybe a 3 lb) was a female FULL of eggs.

I thought Blues spawned around the February - March time frame in the cooler water. Am I wrong about that? Do these fish spawn at all times of year?

Here's a pic of some of the fish

Not a great pic. But also shows why I'm not a photographer

My understanding is that catfish are the last to spawn. Generally 70°-75° water temperature.

They typically spawn May, June, and into July until water gets too hot.

Well alrighy, it looks like I'll be doing some more cat fishing here in the nearby future.
Thanks for the info!

Holzer....they pre-spawn in late feb thru late march meaning they start wrapping up the heavy feed and start pairing up with males in search for the perfect hole.

Then, the female has to lay her eggs in the hole which takes a long time...then she has to fan them sometimes up to 45 days straight.

This entire process takes sometimes 60-70 days.

And, most end up getting the eggs to fry by mid to late June...and into mid July.

I watched a big Fish get pulled off her nest by some scuba equipped divers at holiday few days ago. Pulled a 50 out of her hole. Who knows how long that precess took to get her to that hole and fan her eggs but u can guarantees she put up a heck of a fight trying to get away and in turn killed the entire nest doing so.

They kept her too, sucks.

Congrats on the catch!
I too recently saw a group of noodlers on my area lake. I knew it was yella cat spawning season and thought that's what they were after till I got closer. Upon talking with them I found that they had grabbed 15 blues and one yella! All fish were kept! Them boys got tough hands grabbing blues by the mouth! I confess that I used to hand fish too but never to reduce the whole dang population! It is definitely spawn time!

Michael is right. The feb-March timeframe is typically a prespawn period. Right now most of the bigger fish are up in holes protecting eggs. I believe they typically start to come off mid to late July. That smaller fish was probably full of eggs due to lack of spawning habitat. I think most of the bigger fish get first pick of prime spawning grounds and some of the smaller fish may not find an adequate location to spawn. Just another reason why it’s crucial to let those bigger fish go to grow and continue to produce more fish for future generations.

Mike,
Thanks for the added details. Helps to understand the skin fish a little better.




Good thing I like keeping the smaller ones