Thread: Cataract Slab Masters

Originally Posted by ptowncrappe

Is it safe to assume the spawn is over?

I would think so. I fished it today..or tried to. I haven't fished the Cat in a couple of years,,and this late in the season either. It was a zoo...got there about 7:30am and there was already a bunch of boaters fishing. I long lined for a couple of hours, then trolled bandits...and caught and kept 10 for me and the wife to eat. Everything I kept was 11 to 12.5 inches and I threw back everything else..about 80-90 fish total. Every productive point had 2-3 boats on it and if you were seen catching anything of size..someone would eventually move in on me a lot of the time. Lots of boaters were moving from point to point fishing a bit then moving again. When I cleaned all my fish tonite,,they were all females and eggs were solid except for one as her eggs were runny..but the water temp was 80 plus by 3.30pm when I pulled out...as I pulled out,,there were lots of boats launching for the evening zoo. I don't think I have ever seen the fishing pressure on the Cat like I did today. I feel for the guys having a tournament tomorrow as it will be worse than today. I will say this..the Cat would be great to nite fish. I think the spawn is over as the larger fish that hit my bandits,,came out of 16-20' of water as I was running the bandits no more than 10.5 ft down. Same on the RR jigs,,had to swap out to 1/4 oz to get them down and keep my speed under 1mph or less as I trend to stay about 0.6 mph but hard to do around that many boaters, and the slight wind. I should have been there earlier in the morning also. Ton of fishing pressure on the Cat. for sure but its still producing nice crappies.