yesterday evening i took the boat out to hicks lake for some spiny ray fishing. after being over by the lily pads for about a half hour catching a few bluegill, i thought i saw a good sized fish chasing perch or something small around in the center of the lake. the water was just boiling with activity out there! so i motored over, tried tossing pretty much every lure at the fish rising, with no hits. confused, i got closer and noticed something.

they were catfish, hundreds of them. i've never even seen a catfish in hicks lake, although people apparently catch them. but the strangest part was that they were surfacing everywhere, and i was in 15-20 feet of water. they would come up, leap out of the water, then go back down and do it again

anybody else seen this kind of activity?

haven't seen that type of activity but they are a predatory fish. I've caught them on spinners before. Best bait for channel cats is something fresh, they use alot of live bait back east for them. Everyone thinks they want something rotten but they used to think that about sturgeon too.

I've seen them on the surface before, but it's been a long time. I was back in catfish territory back then.

Anyways... when I spotted them on the surface I was able to sight fish for them with artificials. They just track lures down slower than say... a bass.

when I was fishing a lake in Texas for Strippers a few years ago the grasshoppers had been very thick the last couple days. The blues started to notice this too an where taking them off the surface. With no Strippers showing I when home, actually a cousins house, and got my fly rod. After tying up some huge hopper patterns, I went back out that evening and caught over fifty blues on the bug rods. Great fun to see thouse huge mouths take a fly even if they taste like $h!t.

seen it many times in Kansas on hot summer days. No O2 and hot water make 'em go nuts.
There was probably a thermocolumn of cooler water they were swimming in. If I remember right Hicks get deeper right in the middle.
I have actually seen cats and carp come up for air......this has been a weird summer for Washington huh