![]() In any season, catfish prefer deeper habitats during the day and shallower water while feeding at night. Summertime is prime time for wetting a line for Ohio’s whiskered species, which are often active when more ‘glamorous’ gamefish are less cooperative, offering a fishery both day and night from boat and shore. The stocking usually takes place in late summer when up to 50,000 channel catfish are taken from hatchery ponds and divided up among the lake’s that have been selected to receive fish that year. Lakes that receive the yearling cats, which average 7- to 10-inches when stocked, get the fish at a rate of 25 per surface acre. Targeting waters less than 500 acres in size, where channel catfish have trouble reproducing naturally, the ODOW stocking program is so popular that it takes two years to complete its statewide rounds. In addition to wild catfish, the Ohio Division of Wildlife (ODOW) has an aggressive, semi-annual catfish stocking program that places channel cats in upwards of one hundred lakes across the state. ![]() Channel cats and flatheads prowl Ohio’s lakes and rivers as well, the latter “shovelheads” reaching weights approaching the century mark. While those “keepers” may be hand-size bullheads, the fact is that the Buckeye State is blessed with an abundance of places for anglers to hook up with everything from foot-long “yellow bellies” to blue cats that are measured by the foot. Most Ohioanglers reside within a long cast, or at least a short drive, of waters that hold keeper catfish.
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