So my son caught a couple of catfish out of the Red River a bit North of Vernon today. He brought them home and I cleaned them. Both were female and CHOCK full of eggs.

What do yall know about the spawning habits of our north texas river channel cats?

Water was FLOWING, btw.

sb

It's time.

They go shallow and look for hollow logs and trees. Or rocks on rip-rap. Two to four feet deep is perfect.

Here in Alabama, I leave the heavy gear at home for the month of June. Fish mainly for small channels or blues as the bigger ones have something else on their mind. Even the catfish guides take June off.

Our local lake spawned early with the high temps, so right now it's time to target the eaters and smaller fish.

I went out with Catfish Time this past week, and given the monsoon rains even the bait was hard to find as they were dispersed everywhere. We had a great day with a whole bunch of smaller fish up to around 12 pounds, probably 50-60 pounds of blues.

The lake is (gasp) TEN FEET above full pool, so places that we might normally target at 25 feet were now at 35 feet, so took some getting used to.

I took this pic of the Collin Creek main boat ramp from the marina and you can see the car parking area which is now barely out of the water. Two more feet and the water will be going over the spill way. Tim said he has never seen the lake this high. Ever. Crazy!!

I am not hating the rains.

Still curious about what the river fish do for spawning. My guess is they find cut backs, slues and oxbows to spawn in where the water is not flowing at such a high rate as to sweep the eggs and milt away.

sb

They’re cavity spawners and the don’t mind current (most catfish are quite fond of heavy currents actually). Rocks are the go to on lakes because there are lots of holes for the fish to hang out in, that doesn’t mean they ONLY spawn on rocks. That’s why folks put tires and buckets in their farm ponds for their catfish to spawn. You’re on the money that hollowed out logs, the bottoms of root balls, holes under rocks, cut banks, etc are the preferred spawning grounds.

I’ve been hitting the rip rap along the Eagle Mountain lake with fresh caught shad daily for a couple of weeks without a single bite. Most fish I catch are still in 24-28 foot of water.

The fish have been in the shallows since early April. In a lot of cases shallower than 2’.

I fished rocks last Sunday morning for about 2 hours. Caught probably 25 and brought 10 home. Biggest was almost 24" which was a giant for me since I dont Catfish but maybe twice a year. All were in about 5' of water under a cork with punch bait. If you cant get bit doing that right now then you really suck at fishing.

They still on the rocks spawning or have they moved back out? Going to try to get some friends hooked on fishing this weekend. Will probably try to hit the rocks on 380 at Lavon.

Right on the $! Rocks suck fishing from but will definitely reward you! Put the time in and find a pattern is key + timing
Got to go to know

All the rain really must have confused the fish on Eagle Mountain. Last year, one bank about 100 yards long had nesting bass about every 10’. This year…none. Catfish were pretty consistent all winter but when the lake rose 10’ with the rains, they scattered. I still hit the shallow water in the rocks but have yet to catch a single cat. Another example of the scatter is the sandbass. I’m catching them in 25’-35’ of water in the open lake. I’m also catching a few in water less than 3’ deep in weeds along the bank. I did catch a 4lb channel cat on a Slapstik in 3’ of water but it was in some cattails on a muddy bottom.