Expert tips and tactics for catching Manitoba’s mighty channel catfish

Over subsequent years, I’ve fished for cats whenever possible during my annual visits to Manitoba, learning as I went. On one occasion, in the late-1990s, I hit the river below Lockport with two friends. We found a likely looking spot downstream of the lock, then dropped anchor in the slack water adjacent to the main current.

As we prepared to begin fishing, however, it became apparent that we were adrift. Grabbing the anchor line to reset it, I discovered that, in fact, we no longer had an anchor—the old tether had finally given up the ghost. Our only option was to motor into the relatively quiet water in the tail of the Red River Floodway, the 47-kilometre-long channel excavated in 1968 to carry excess floodwater around Winnipeg before returning it to the river below Lockport.

Normally, we would have fish weighted baits on the bottom along current edges, but with no significant current in the spillway, that wasn’t an option. So instead, we rigged up slip-bobbers as an alternate way to present our bait in the relatively gentle waters. Imagine our surprise when the very first drift resulted in a take, and the one after that produced a double. Over the course of a few hours, we caught something in the order of two dozen big catfish, including several double hook-ups. We got quite the education that afternoon, discovering there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. (See Tackle & techniques)