I always thought it was too cold and the growing season not long enough for them to reproduce, but the two I caught yesterday were both females stuffed to the gills with eggs. It was my impression that the WDFW had stocked channels in these lakes twice, once about 10 years ago, and again a couple years ago. In addition to the two larger ones, I also caught a smaller one about 12 inches which I gave away. Does this mean that they're reproducing in the lake?

[ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Arklier ]

I believe the need a constant temperature of 65F or above during their spawning season. If they have that, then they certainly can reproduce. Were these bullheads or channels?

What lake did you catch them in?

I caught them in Gissberg Ponds (Twin Lakes) in Snohomish county. They were definitely channels. The larger ones were far too big to be bullheads, and they all had a slaty blue color on top, and a creamy white belly with a speckling of small black spots. I don't know what temperature the water was, but I remember it being quite warm.

Channel catfish have pointy tails, bullheads rounded ends. Channels tend to have smaller mouths in relation to body size than bullheads. Bullheads, of equal size are a chunkier body shape than channels.

I used to use crappies for bait for channel catfish. I'd catch one about 8 inches or larger and cut it into thirds. That made a bait that was big enough to where fish smaller than 20 inches could get it in their mouths.

Back in Maryland I used to fish below the Conawingo dam in the slack water. My outfit was loaded with 20 lb line. I remember this one time my sinker was snagged on the bottom and I figured if I got a bite the fish might get the sinker loose. All of a sudden I got a hit that dragged my rod tip down to the water and when the tip came up, the fish had broke 20 pound line on the strike. My rod was a 9 foot Shakespeare surf rod. I used it out here for sturgeon until it met it's untimely end in a car door.

Just to let you know that as of September of 2000 there were less than 30 channel cats of reproducing age in gissberg ponds. Which means there are fewer than that now due to people keeping them, and less fish coming of that age because a slow maturity rate due to the cold climate. Their introduction was a test to see if stocking channel cats through out the state would be productive enough for the state to spend the money on. That’s why there were signs around the lake saying to release all catfish immediately. The state actually spent a large amount of money on this test site. All the original fish have electronic tags in their heads just like some hatchery salmon. There were only 40 fish put in and as of last September there were only 6 of those left. These fish were watched very closely, as the success of this lake and two others on the West Side was to determine if the cat-stocking project would go any further. In 96' we found that they had reproduced enough to make a transfer of the trout-stocking budget to the channel cat stocking budget would be worth the states time and effort. Then they removed the signs in 97' and let it be known that the catfish population was now self-sustaining. By the end of the summer of 98' the catfish population had been reduced from over 200 adults to about 15 fish due to people keeping every cat they caught. When that count was redone a month later to make sure it was correct the second crew of counters only came up with two more fish. After that, the funding was pulled and all talk of stocking channel cats in western Washington was abandoned. So if would like to keep catching cats in twin lakes, please release all of the cats over 16 inches because there will be no more state funded cat fish being put in. There needs to be at least 40 adults to keep the population going, and a cat doesn’t reach breeding age until its 5 years old. Around here a 6 pound 20 inch channel cat is about 10 years old so you probably caught one of the original stocked fish. PLEASE don’t keep the big ones.