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An avid catfish angler is glad to see new regulations coming for western Pennsylvania flatheads and blues as he shares why these fish are fun and addictive to catch.
Justin Cobbett, 44, of Kittanning, Armstong County, has been going after flatheads for more than a decade.
He prefers them over going for other species like walleye and northern pike.
“It’s just that fight. You get them to the boat and they just want to hold tight to the bottom (of the waterway) and they don’t want to come up off. It’s just different. It’s like being hooked to a small tractor,” he said.
"It’s not just like they’re heavy and you just drag them in. You actually get yourself a good fight.”
PA Outdoors: Pennsylvania considers new catfish fishing rules in Ohio River Basin
Cobbett likes to go two or three times a week when the fishing is good.
“I started in 2014. I was actually carp fishing all the time, and I ended up catching more catfish than carp,” he said.
“I started catching channel cats instead of carp, and the next you know, I’m starting to catch flatheads. I went from using chicken liver and shrimp, the stuff that would catch more channel cats, I switched all that and I started using more cut bait, fresh fish. And then I started catching flatheads and once I got that first big one, it was over after that,” he said.
He went from fishing on the banks of waterways to getting a boat that’s equipped for these heavy fish.
Now he and William Cravenor Templeton are competing in the Tri-State Hawg Hunters tournament series, a catfish tournament series in southwest Pennsylvania for the past six years. They’re currently in first place.
“We’ve been lucky. We’ve been in the top five every year, and we’re at our halfway point. We do eight tournaments a year. We do four before spawn and four after spawn. We’re on our break right now, and we’re sitting in first place overall,” Cobbett said.
Big blues: About 10,000 catfish, with the potential to be 70 pounds each, released in Pittsburgh area
In the four tournaments so far this year, they were able to catch 176 pounds of catfish. “And that’s three fish each time,” he said.
The tournament is for all types of catfish and anglers enter three fish and they are scored by their weight. It’s a catch and release tournament. “I release every catfish that I’ve ever caught. Your fish has to swim away to win or you’re disqualified,” Cobbett said.
The tournament series picks up again at the end of August after the heat of summer and the catfish spawning period.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC), during its April board meeting, started the process to change the creel limit for flatheads caught in the Ohio River basin in western Pennsylvania. Presently, the creel limit is like panfish in that anglers can keep 50 a day.
The proposed change is a four fish per day creel limit with only one of the four flatheads being greater than or equal to 35 inches in length.
Flatheads are a native species to the Ohio River basin but are considered an invasive species in eastern parts of Pennsylvania.
The agency is also considering making blue catfish in the Ohio River Basin a catch and release fish. Blues are native to this basin but were extirpated about a century ago.
The PFBC started a reintroduction effort for them in 2022 in the Pittsburgh area. Blues are labeled as an invasive species outside of the Ohio River Basin. The regulation changes would go into effect Jan. 1 if adopted at an upcoming meeting.
Cobbett is glad the agency is tightening the creel limit for these rivers western Pennsylvania. “I mean, 50 catfish a day is ridiculous,” he said about the current regulation.
He said most bow fishermen he sees are out shooting carp, but they can shoot catfish as well if they are so inclined. There have been times, when he pulled into a boat launch when a bow fishing group is there. “You see them just empty in these barrels of dead catfish they shot. They are allowed,” he said.
Cobbett caught one blue catfish in Pittsburgh four years ago on the Monongahela River. It may not have been one of the fish stocked by the PFBC because it weighed 21 pounds which is much larger than the yearling fish the agency released around Pittsburgh.
He said a biologist verified that it was a blue.
“It was either always here, or someone brought it here and released it,” he said. Some blues have swum into Pennsylvania from West Virginia where they have a growing blue cat population.
Cobbett lives about two minutes from the Allegheny River and enjoys fishing there as well as on other rivers. He likes fishing in Pittsburgh.
“That’s probably one of my favorite places just because you have the confluence of three rivers. You have the Allegheny, the Mon(ongahela) and Ohio. Most of the time you have three different water temperatures,” he said. “If you go to one river and it’s not producing, you just hop over onto a different one. There’s a lot of water, three different rivers and a lot of big fish."
On his boat Cobbett has two fish finders, a trolling motor that allows him to fish multiple rods with planer boards out to the side, and an 80-gallon live well to keep the big fish healthy on their way to be scored.
When it comes to fishing for flatheads, they mainly set up by anchoring the boat and casting out with cut bait and sometimes live fish. “We do good on live bait, but we probably catch 90% of our fish on cut bait,” he said regarding using pieces of bluegill, creek chubs and suckers. “Pretty much anything that’s legal.”
For fishing gear and clothing, Cobbett said they have several sponsors who are now providing some of the needed equipment. For example, Anvil Rods in Butler provides his fishing poles and lines. “We run medium heavy action and heavy action rods. We run our reels with 40-pound mono that is Reactive fishing line and then we run 80-pound mono leader,” he said.
They need the heavy line on their baitcasting reels because they’re fishing around structures, current breaks and ledges. “We fish a lot around structure. That’s one of the main reasons we use 80-pound leader,” he said about rocky and brushy areas. He’s also done well around sunken boats and barges on the river.
They use large circle hooks to hold the bait.
“We run a few different types but pretty much a 10/0 hook,” Cobbett said. With wide circle hooks, he said the fish usually get hooked in the corner of their mouths which helps the fish survive versus when a hook is swallowed.
Depending on the speed of the current, he typically uses a four-ounce sinker to hold the bait down, but he places a Styrofoam stick float between the bait and sinker to keep the bait several inches off the bottom. “Just so it’s more in the striking area,” he explained.
When a big cat takes the bait, it gets interesting because they keep the drag on the reel tight. “The rod will literally bend in half it looks like. With the run of the circle hook, they usually hook themselves. It’s a good time,” he said. With his heavy line, he’s able to get the cats to the boat within a few minutes.
When he looks back at his catches, he said, “the average would be like 15 to 20 (pounds) and a really good one for our area is 30 to mid-30s,” he said. “We catch a lot of little ones."
His heaviest so far weighs 38 pounds, but his fishing partner caught a bigger one on their boat. “He got one that was 43.5 pounds.”
The state record for a flathead was caught in southeastern Pennsylvania where flatheads can grow faster than in their native western Pennsylvania range.
The state record flathead was caught in 2023 in the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County. Michael Wherley of Fayetteville caught a 66-pound, 6-ounce flathead to set the record. After the fish was weighed at a sport shop, he returned the fish back to the river where he caught it.
“I’d like to see it keep on growing,” he said shortly after it was released.
The fish wasn’t marked with a tag or anything to signify its size, meaning the fish may be able to break its own record if it continues to grow.
Record breaking catch: Fisherman credits Swedish Fish, special holiday in catching Pa. record catfish
When it comes to knowing when to fish, Cobbett prefers going after the sun sets.
"You can catch them during the day. We fish our tournaments at night, and the only reason that is, is because usually during the day it’s really hot or you have all the other boats waking up and down the river. At night, you don’t have all that boat traffic,” he said.
The PFBC lists three rivers across the state to those seeking heavy flatheads. The Ohio River between Pittsburgh and Ohio; The Schuylkill Rier between Philadelphia and Reading, and the Susquehanna River from Northumberland County south through Harrisburg and Lancaster County into Maryland.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at [email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Angler shares views on new catfish regulations, how to catch them
Continue reading...
Justin Cobbett, 44, of Kittanning, Armstong County, has been going after flatheads for more than a decade.
He prefers them over going for other species like walleye and northern pike.
“It’s just that fight. You get them to the boat and they just want to hold tight to the bottom (of the waterway) and they don’t want to come up off. It’s just different. It’s like being hooked to a small tractor,” he said.
"It’s not just like they’re heavy and you just drag them in. You actually get yourself a good fight.”
PA Outdoors: Pennsylvania considers new catfish fishing rules in Ohio River Basin
You must be registered for see images attach
Cobbett likes to go two or three times a week when the fishing is good.
“I started in 2014. I was actually carp fishing all the time, and I ended up catching more catfish than carp,” he said.
“I started catching channel cats instead of carp, and the next you know, I’m starting to catch flatheads. I went from using chicken liver and shrimp, the stuff that would catch more channel cats, I switched all that and I started using more cut bait, fresh fish. And then I started catching flatheads and once I got that first big one, it was over after that,” he said.
He went from fishing on the banks of waterways to getting a boat that’s equipped for these heavy fish.
Now he and William Cravenor Templeton are competing in the Tri-State Hawg Hunters tournament series, a catfish tournament series in southwest Pennsylvania for the past six years. They’re currently in first place.
“We’ve been lucky. We’ve been in the top five every year, and we’re at our halfway point. We do eight tournaments a year. We do four before spawn and four after spawn. We’re on our break right now, and we’re sitting in first place overall,” Cobbett said.
Big blues: About 10,000 catfish, with the potential to be 70 pounds each, released in Pittsburgh area
You must be registered for see images attach
In the four tournaments so far this year, they were able to catch 176 pounds of catfish. “And that’s three fish each time,” he said.
The tournament is for all types of catfish and anglers enter three fish and they are scored by their weight. It’s a catch and release tournament. “I release every catfish that I’ve ever caught. Your fish has to swim away to win or you’re disqualified,” Cobbett said.
The tournament series picks up again at the end of August after the heat of summer and the catfish spawning period.
You must be registered for see images attach
New regulations for Ohio River Basin
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC), during its April board meeting, started the process to change the creel limit for flatheads caught in the Ohio River basin in western Pennsylvania. Presently, the creel limit is like panfish in that anglers can keep 50 a day.
The proposed change is a four fish per day creel limit with only one of the four flatheads being greater than or equal to 35 inches in length.
Flatheads are a native species to the Ohio River basin but are considered an invasive species in eastern parts of Pennsylvania.
The agency is also considering making blue catfish in the Ohio River Basin a catch and release fish. Blues are native to this basin but were extirpated about a century ago.
The PFBC started a reintroduction effort for them in 2022 in the Pittsburgh area. Blues are labeled as an invasive species outside of the Ohio River Basin. The regulation changes would go into effect Jan. 1 if adopted at an upcoming meeting.
Cobbett is glad the agency is tightening the creel limit for these rivers western Pennsylvania. “I mean, 50 catfish a day is ridiculous,” he said about the current regulation.
He said most bow fishermen he sees are out shooting carp, but they can shoot catfish as well if they are so inclined. There have been times, when he pulled into a boat launch when a bow fishing group is there. “You see them just empty in these barrels of dead catfish they shot. They are allowed,” he said.
Cobbett caught one blue catfish in Pittsburgh four years ago on the Monongahela River. It may not have been one of the fish stocked by the PFBC because it weighed 21 pounds which is much larger than the yearling fish the agency released around Pittsburgh.
He said a biologist verified that it was a blue.
“It was either always here, or someone brought it here and released it,” he said. Some blues have swum into Pennsylvania from West Virginia where they have a growing blue cat population.
Cobbett lives about two minutes from the Allegheny River and enjoys fishing there as well as on other rivers. He likes fishing in Pittsburgh.
“That’s probably one of my favorite places just because you have the confluence of three rivers. You have the Allegheny, the Mon(ongahela) and Ohio. Most of the time you have three different water temperatures,” he said. “If you go to one river and it’s not producing, you just hop over onto a different one. There’s a lot of water, three different rivers and a lot of big fish."
You must be registered for see images attach
Gearing up for flatheads
On his boat Cobbett has two fish finders, a trolling motor that allows him to fish multiple rods with planer boards out to the side, and an 80-gallon live well to keep the big fish healthy on their way to be scored.
When it comes to fishing for flatheads, they mainly set up by anchoring the boat and casting out with cut bait and sometimes live fish. “We do good on live bait, but we probably catch 90% of our fish on cut bait,” he said regarding using pieces of bluegill, creek chubs and suckers. “Pretty much anything that’s legal.”
For fishing gear and clothing, Cobbett said they have several sponsors who are now providing some of the needed equipment. For example, Anvil Rods in Butler provides his fishing poles and lines. “We run medium heavy action and heavy action rods. We run our reels with 40-pound mono that is Reactive fishing line and then we run 80-pound mono leader,” he said.
They need the heavy line on their baitcasting reels because they’re fishing around structures, current breaks and ledges. “We fish a lot around structure. That’s one of the main reasons we use 80-pound leader,” he said about rocky and brushy areas. He’s also done well around sunken boats and barges on the river.
They use large circle hooks to hold the bait.
“We run a few different types but pretty much a 10/0 hook,” Cobbett said. With wide circle hooks, he said the fish usually get hooked in the corner of their mouths which helps the fish survive versus when a hook is swallowed.
Depending on the speed of the current, he typically uses a four-ounce sinker to hold the bait down, but he places a Styrofoam stick float between the bait and sinker to keep the bait several inches off the bottom. “Just so it’s more in the striking area,” he explained.
When a big cat takes the bait, it gets interesting because they keep the drag on the reel tight. “The rod will literally bend in half it looks like. With the run of the circle hook, they usually hook themselves. It’s a good time,” he said. With his heavy line, he’s able to get the cats to the boat within a few minutes.
When he looks back at his catches, he said, “the average would be like 15 to 20 (pounds) and a really good one for our area is 30 to mid-30s,” he said. “We catch a lot of little ones."
His heaviest so far weighs 38 pounds, but his fishing partner caught a bigger one on their boat. “He got one that was 43.5 pounds.”
The state record for a flathead was caught in southeastern Pennsylvania where flatheads can grow faster than in their native western Pennsylvania range.
The state record flathead was caught in 2023 in the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County. Michael Wherley of Fayetteville caught a 66-pound, 6-ounce flathead to set the record. After the fish was weighed at a sport shop, he returned the fish back to the river where he caught it.
“I’d like to see it keep on growing,” he said shortly after it was released.
The fish wasn’t marked with a tag or anything to signify its size, meaning the fish may be able to break its own record if it continues to grow.
Record breaking catch: Fisherman credits Swedish Fish, special holiday in catching Pa. record catfish
When it comes to knowing when to fish, Cobbett prefers going after the sun sets.
"You can catch them during the day. We fish our tournaments at night, and the only reason that is, is because usually during the day it’s really hot or you have all the other boats waking up and down the river. At night, you don’t have all that boat traffic,” he said.
Best places to find flatheads in Pennsylvania
The PFBC lists three rivers across the state to those seeking heavy flatheads. The Ohio River between Pittsburgh and Ohio; The Schuylkill Rier between Philadelphia and Reading, and the Susquehanna River from Northumberland County south through Harrisburg and Lancaster County into Maryland.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at [email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Angler shares views on new catfish regulations, how to catch them
Continue reading...
