New Species for Me (Cats on Cat's)

[Brian Davis]

I went to a pond about 10 minutes form my office after work.  I've been going there a lot lately, and have been catching some decent Bluegill and Green Hybrids.  Today I was surprised to catch two Bullhead Catfish!  Never done that before. They were caught on Cat's Whiskers flies. I love adding to the species list.

[ted hoffman]

Could you describe a Cat's whiskers fly for me please? 'preciate it.

[Linecaster]

Brian congrats on your cats with your hand tied Cats Whiskers

Was your top picture down sized? It took awhile to download

[Ron Mc]

Could you describe a Cat's whiskers fly for me please? 'preciate it.

Cats whisker is on the patterns board

[Brian Davis]

Linecaster - Thanks, I love catching fish on flies I tied myself.  I thought wordpress.com was compressing these pics for me, but I guess not enough.  I always try to stay within the 640 X 480 guideline, but it looks like I need to get a little more data out of my photos.
Ted - Here's a thread on Warmfly that shows how to do a couple of versions of the Cat's Whisker, and also a link to a youtube video showing a slightly different method.

http://www.warmfly.com/smf/index.php?topic=274.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGdJz98pjOc&feature=related

There are several other videos.  This fly is easy to tie, and very easy to customize.

[Brian Davis]

I went to the same pond where I caught the catfish on the cats whiskers and caught this bad boy at lunch today.  I'm thinking it's a blue.  Forked tail, but no spots like a channel cat.  Feel free to correct me on the species.  Most of my catfish experience is with channel and Bull catfish.  Caught this on a little streamer pattern someone tied in a fly swap.  Basically, and #10 beaded hook wrapped with green pearl chenille, and a chartreuse marabou tail. 

Caught it on my little 7 foot 4 wt.  I think it took me about 5 minutes to land it.  Lots of fun!

[blufloyd]

Male spawner channel.  they can get almost black.

[Brian Davis]

Thanks, Blu.   After I read your answer I looked at the TPWD and the distinguishing characteristics seem to be spots on channels  (absent on a lot of males), and the anal fin.  As good as I can count, there are closer to 24-29 (channel) than 30-36 Blue).  Any other way you can tell besides what I found online?

[Stu Thompson]

The tail is the key on a Channel it is forked and on a blue it isn't. Nice fish on the fly by the way.

[bxn]

wow nice bullhead!couple that size would make a good dinner!same with that channel cat!I never have caught catfish on my fly rod as of yet,but i know a place where i've caught  small bullheads on surface lures at dusk and after dark,so i would imagine they'd kill some dry flies good 

[greenlantern]

I've caught lots of cats on spinners and jigs, so I  should be able to work it out on a fly. What's the best way to get a fly down? Weight the fly or the leader? Some kind of dropshot type rig?

[greenlantern]

Cool soundtrack on that video, who's the band?