Slimed on the Patapsco

[Mark]

I got a last minute invitation from a fishing buddy to check the Patapsco for stripers this afternoon. We concentrated on the area from Bodkin Creek to Bodkin Point. The tide was incoming, the current was brisk, the water was choppy and conditions looked perfect for a good striper bite. The water there is shallow at 4 to 5 feet.

Our optimism was quickly dashed. Neither of us caught a legal sized striper. I believe we caught 8 or 9 stripers each. The ones we caught were small but they were clean and healthy looking and they pulled above their weight. Good news for the future, I hope.

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We each cast paddletails. I cast a white 3 inch Fat Sam paddletail on a 1/8 oz. jig. My buddy was using a darker colored paddletail also on a 1/8 oz. jig. We targeted structure, primarily riprap, but that yielded only a few stripers. We did better in open water 50 to 100 yards off the shore.

We also picked up a few perch, including a 12 incher by my buddy.

I managed two surprises. I nailed two catfish fairly far off shore in shallow water on the paddletail. I was varying the speed of the retrieve with a start/stop motion. The first one hit hard. Initially, I thought it was a legal striper by the way it pulled the drag. But there was no telltale striper headshake. I assumed it was a catfish and I was right. It was a chunky 24 incher:

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Within 5 minutes I had a second one on my line. Same lure, same start/stop retrieve. It hit more subtly and didn't pull as hard as the first nor was it as fat. It came in at 23 inches:

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I know for sure the first one was a channel cat. But I noted that the second one was more silver or grey. I assume that was a channel cat too.

Perhaps one of our catfish experts here can let me know for sure.

I'd appreciate it.

[dsaavedra]

Both look like channel cats to me. Occasionally you'll get white catfish in tidal waters and they look somewhat similar to channel cats but have different fin structures, white chin whiskers, and a fatter, stockier head than a channel cat. The white catfish I've caught have been pale gray in color, almost like a blue cat. Here are two white catfish I caught at the same time on a bottom rig:

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[Mark]

Dave,

Thank you.

I thought it was a channel cat. I'm used to seeing them with more olive in their coloring. It was the fifth channel cat I've caught this year -- always a bycatch when fishing for perch or stripers.