Catfish Offer Light Tackle Fun From The Valley Floor To The High Sierra   By: Dan Bacher August 11, 2008 More Articles by Dan

Catfish, scorned by some as lowly bottom feeders but appreciated by many for their hard fighting qualities, can be caught in a surprising array of waters, ranging from the warm water of city park ponds in the heart of the Sacramento area to the clear, cold lakes of the Sierra Nevada.

During the heat of the long valley summer, channel and white catfish, as well as brown and black bullheads, provide some close-to-home light tackle action for anglers willing to be patient and wait it out for the whiskerfish.

With gasoline prices at an all time high, the prospect of urban fishing becomes more and more attractive. The DFG, through a private contractor, is planting channel catfish every week in William Land Park, Howe Park, Elk Grove Park and Hagen Park through September 27, according to Joe Ferreira, coordinator of the DFG’s “Fishing in the City” Sacramento area program. Catfish will also be stocked during special fishing clinics at other area ponds.

The Department, beginning in June, has already planted 8400 pounds of channel catfish. By the end of the September, they will have already stocked 12,800 pounds in the Sacramento area ponds.

“We’re planting 1200 pounds per week between all of the ponds, anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds per location,” said Ferreira. “The bonus this year is the our supplier is emptying his ponds, so he’s putting a lot of 5 to 6 pound cats in the mix, along with the 1 to 2 pound cats. The anglers seem to be happy overall with the larger fish in the loads.”

I can testify to the quality of the fish. During a fishing clinic at Hagen Park in Rancho Cordova on July 5, Don Paganelli, DFG employee with the Fishing in the City Program, came up to me, and excitedly said, “you got to check out these two fish on a guy’s stringer.”

I walked over to the man, Viktor Stepanyik of Rancho as he patiently fished with cheese baits. He pulled up his stringer with a 5 pound catfish. Suddenly the other catfish, a much larger one, darted off into the pond.

Don and I looked at one another, realizing that the second fish he though was on the guy’s stringer was just sitting right next to the fish that was already on the stringer! About 10 minutes later, Victor indeed hooked another large fish and actually put a second fish on the stringer this time.

Meanwhile, 11-year-old Arnold Her of Rancho Cordova was battling a huge catfish. His brother, Hue Her, chased it around until he got the big channel catfish in the net. The fish weighed at least 6 pounds.

The DFG has already conducted fishing clinics at Oak Grove Park in Stockton, William Land Park in Sacramento and Granite Park in Sacramento and Hagen Park.

Their next clinic will be on Saturday, July 26, from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Florin Creek Park on Persimmon Drive in the Parkway Neighborhood of Sacramento. The co-sponsor of the event will be the Southgate R&P District. “If the shoreline fills, fishing will be for kids only (under 16) until noon,” said Ferreira.

The next fishing clinic will be on Saturday, August 9, from 8:30 a.m. to noon. at Southside Park (Near 6th and V streets) in Sacramento.

Then the DFG and Fulton-El Camino R&P District will team up from 8:30 a.m. to noon at Howe Park, just off Howe Avenue on Cottage Way in Sacramento.

Elk Grove Park will host the last catfish clinic of the summer season on the Free Fishing Day, Saturday Sept 27, from 8:30 a.m. to noon. The park is located right next to Elk Grove High School on Elk Grove-Florin Rd.

While some like to fish the parks, others in the Sacramento area like to beat the heat by fishing at night in the Sacramento River. For example, Tony Sofia has been going fishing after work in the Sacramento between the Tower and I Street bridges to bag good numbers of white catfish. He’s been catching cats averaging 1 to 2 pounds while fishing nightcrawlers, sardines and chicken livers from shore between the two bridges.

Other great catfish hot spots in the Sacramento area include Sutter Bypass and or the Sacramento River near Knights Landing and Verona. Channel catfish are the main cats taken in these areas.

If you’re willing to drive away from the valley heat, you can find some excellent fishing opportunities for small but tasty brown bullhead catfish in the Sierra Nevada. The best place to do this is Union Lake, located off Spicer Meadow Road off Highway 4 in the Ebbetts Pass region. I’ve caught big stringers of bullheads, along this holdover rainbows, while fishing a mixture of nightcrawlers and Power Bait here.

A sleeper for high elevation catfish is Lake Valley Reservoir near Yuba Gap off Interstate 80. The fishing here can be very hit and miss. For example, I had a blast catching one bullhead one after another on June 13 while using nightcrawlers on a sliding sinker rigs before aggressive swarms of mosquitoes drove me off the lake.

Exactly two weeks later, Cal Kellogg, his dad, Cal. Sr., and I went to the same spot on Lake Valley armed with insect repellant, cartons of nightcrawlers, and Berkley Gulp Catfish dough. Expecting to have a lot of fun bagging a bunch of cats for a fish fry, the action was glacially slow. We kept waiting for the bite and it never happened – catching only two small cats and having a bunch of tentative bites.

Other opportunities for high Sierra brown bullheads include Frenchman and Davis lakes. Both of these lakes, in addition to offering great trout fishing, have good populations of bullheads.

Of course, in between the Valley and the High Sierra are plenty of foothill lakes such as Collins, Scotts Flat, Folsom, Camanche, Pardee, Amador, Berryessa and others, not to forget Clear Lake. However, for sheer tastiness, nothing beats the sweet meat of the pan-fried bullheads from High Sierra lakes.

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