It’s another serene setting in the kayak on a cool summer morning. The lake surface is like glass with long legged blue heron stalking prey on the edges. The sun is bright and shines warmly on my shoulders. Casting the edges of dead tree lines usually proves to catching fish. After a few casts there is a huge jolt! Is the lure snagged on a log? Oh no! It’s something huge as the water is splashed by a large fish. Could this be the epic largemouth bass that anglers sometimes spend a lifetime trying to catch? The fish rolls! A glimpse of fins and the body color is a grayish brown. Could this fish really be a cat? As the kayak is pulled in the direction of the fish the pole is bent as far as it can go while the fish starts rolling and thrashing in the skinny water. No net, so the fish is grabbed and hauled into the plastic boat by hand. Time for a picture of this huge cat caught on a spinner bait lure. This same scenario is repeated numerous times this past summer while attempting to find those huge largemouth bass lurking the tree lines. Little do we know that there are huge channel catfish following the same daily pattern. While usually fishing for these cats at night we have found them to be very active during daylight hours as well recently. For years we used stink and cut baits for these monsters. Sure, most of us have landed a cat or two in the past on a plastic worm or other kinds of artificial lures, but consistently? This past summer of 2013 was epic for catching catfish on crank baits and spinner baits. Most of them were caught in one to two foot of water during the early summer. As the summer progressed more of the cats were caught on the edges of rip rap in deeper water. This included blue cats, flatheads, and channels. Inviting others to join in on the fun was even more exhilarating! Most days instead of hunting largemouth, we focused our efforts on the cats with huge spinner baits and even put a “stinger hook” on to guarantee hookups when a cat decided to pursue our lures. Sometimes the spinner baits were grabbed just as they hit the water for an adrenalin rush that would send chills down your spine! Go ahead, give it a try this next season! Tie on a spinner bait and fish those shallow channels where catfish lurk in the early spring. You might even get a joy ride!