OK, gotta apologize for the frustrated report, but this is about my fifth or sixth trip for catfish in which I've gotten savagely skunked. This is getting really, really old, and I think I'm probably done trying for this species. I'm just completely at a loss. To be blunt, channel cats are an aggressive predator, their numbers in the Tri-Cities area are high, and I don't understand why I'm having such difficulty with them....

Upon talking to a number of folks and doing google searches, I decided to try the Snake River. It has a reputation as being packed to the hilt with channel cats, and there are many, many reports where folks will walk out of there with many fish (from a dozen to as many as 50-100 per night). I used my Fish-n-Maps, and Google Map searches to find what should have been a highly promising part of of the river, on the south side of Goose Island below Ice Harbor Dam. The river splits around a large island, and carves a channel on the south side. Even better, there is a large shallow inlet there close to this carved out channel - perfect for catfish going into the shallows to feed after skulking in the deeper water during the day. After finding this, I Googled the Snake River for catfish, and found that somebody had actually recommended this area as "full of carp and catfish". Well, at least the former was true.

I got there about 2:30 pm - definitely a bit early, but I'd brought my bow and hoped to nail a carp for cut bait meat. Due to peculiar water flow and some brown foamy junk on the surface, the numerous carp were too far out to shoot. So I got to business on the catfish.

I tried nightcrawlers on the bottom, shrimp on the bottom, chicken livers on the bottom, carp meat on the bottom (some older stuff from my freezer), and cut herring on the bottom. I was there from 2:30 to 8:30 pm, and didn't have a single bite. Admittedly, shore access was difficult due to brush, and I didn't have much flexibility in terms of where to chuck things. Did try various depths, although much of it was fairly shallow (<10 ft). Tried being patient and let it sit in one place for quite some time, and tried moving it every 10-15 minutes. Nothing. All I did was broil in the 100°F+ temps.

To add insult to injury, on the way out around 8:30 pm, I chatted with a family that was fishing further up towards the dam. I mentioned that I'd had trouble figuring out channel cats, and the Dad proceeded to mention every place I'd every tried for them and gotten brutally skunked (Yakima River mouth near Bateman Island, below Horn Rapids Dam). He even mentioned the very strategy I'd used in these places to no avail (casting scented spinners below HR Dam).

I was tempted to give it another star, because when I arrived, there was a cool sturgeon fisherman with two black labrador retrivers who I got to love on (had two of them, and miss them horrifically), and an employee of the dam (spooking birds, because of course pelicans are so rare that you can't lethally deal with them in critical fisheries) who was helpful, kind, and had great stories. But screw that. Too many skunkings in places that are packed with catfish.

OK, to the point (finally). What in the world am I doing wrong? I've read a lot about the behavior of catfish, and this really shouldn't be as difficult as fly fishing spooky browns in the Brule River. There's a ton of catfish in the Yakima and Snake, and I've managed to avoid them completely after many trips.

Terribly frustrated.....