Where to Find Catfish

[Mahain]

Sorry been in washington for about 4 years and have yet to catch a catchfish here. Don't have a boat and live in the Bremerton area. Where is a good lake close to me to catch some decent catfish.

Thanks in advance

[The Quadfather]

Mahain, welcome to the site. The few catfish lakes that I know of are not what I would call "Close" to Bremerton. Rose lake near chelan, Swofford ponds, West side.

But since you are new to the site... go to "Lake Reports" click under county lakes. go through the "Info" section of each lake in your county. You will see some info. on what fish are likely in said lakes. You may find one that claims to hold catfish. Then go into the reports for that lake and maybe you will see a catfish report.
For some reason targeting catfish is one of the least talked about fisheries on this website. Obviously they are not as abundant here as in other parts of the country..... but def. a few lakes have them.

Edit: click on http://www.washingtonlakes.com/forum/ya ... h.aspx#0|5

put catfish into the search for posts... you will get about 5-6 pages of mention.

[rjn cajun]

I just saw this thread. I was going to ask everyone where a good lake was with an abundence of cats channel to be exact. I was talking to my dad last night and us being from the south running trout lines at night could catch them anywhere. Store bought around here just aren`t as good for fried catfish or catfish courtbillion. My dad told me I need to spend more time catfishin and less time bassn. Anyone know if there is yellow cats around here. Quad your right about catfish not being mentioned to much on the site. Maybe it`s because you have to aquire a taste for them. The more they taste like dirt the better they are.

[Fish_Bait111397]

harts lake, Pierce county.

[returnofthefish]

I remember the old threads about catfishing mentioned that Lake Washington has catfish around the Seward Park area. Thats just a ferry ride across the sound. Plus you can catch perch and other fish.

[natetreat]

I know that Lake Washington has bullheads, but I've never seen a channel cat, or heard a first or second hand account of it. I've done a lot of searching, and most of the channel catfish in washington are in columbia river and tributaries of it. The Yakima river has some, and the lakes over there.

Closest I've heard to me is Sowfford Pond or Green Lake or this Harts Lake. I've heard stories of Gissberg lakes putting out channel cats.

I love catfish, I'd love to catch a big one. I've done quite a bit of searching on the WDFW website and have found permit proposals for fish management where someone wanted to plant a specific lake, but I don't know if they were accepted. It'd be awesome to get some big cats around here, even a 1 or 2 pounder is good eating though! But in the meantime when I want to fight something big I'll just have to tug on some carp.

[spokey9]

call the df&w biologist. they'll know where the channel cats have been stocked in the past. the lakes i've found on my own or with some help from members on this site are:

Harts Lake (pierce county)
Swofford Pond
Green Lake (king county)
Kress Lake

out of those 4, i've only fished harts & swofford. harts isn't nearly as good as it was in the early to mid 2000's but there are still some big cats in there. I haven't fish swafford as much as i'd like to because the cow's on the way there and i tend to get sidetracked chasing steel. I've seen and heard about more channels 10lbs and up from there then anywhere this side of the mountains.

[racfish]

Campbell Lake up on the way to Deception Pass. That is my "go to" lake for Kitty Cats.