FM Crookston Catfish Gathering 2004 July 10, 2004 "Catfish?? Why in the heck would you want to catch a catfish?" I was asked. I was not quite sure how to answer that question when first asked. My best response was that I'd never caught one before and wanted to give it a shot! The main reason I was chatting about going catfishing was the FishingMinnesota Catfish Gathering in Crookston, MN. Being a Crookston native, I felt obligated to head back to my home town and partake in the 1st Annual Catfish Gathering.

Let me tell you that in the 18 years I lived in Crookston, I never once fished in the Red Lake River which runs through town. I just never wanted to fish in the river and was honestly never open-minded enough to give it a try. All I really knew about the river was that it flooded every spring! I never knew it was also a fantastic multi-species fishery! It took Rusty Miller, of Wiskers Guiding Service, and some other FishingMinnesota cat fanatics to convince me this would be a good time. They put in a lot of effort beforehand to make this event what it was, and that was a good time! Rusty was busy rounding up sponsors, door prizes, and busy mixing up a secret recipe for the fish fry. It turned out this weekend would be an awesome time to meet some good fisherman, have a good time, and learn something about catfishing.

Before the fishing got underway, Rusty organized a big fish pot. Everyone tossed $10 into the pot and biggest fish took the money. Nothing like a friendly little competition to add some fun to the day. So the rest of the day we fished. I fished with nightcrawlers and caught lots of fish- sheepshead, goldeyes, suckers, rock bass, carp. Hmmmm... I thought, everyone else is catching catfish and I'm not. What gives?? It turns out I'd been releasing the best catfish bait around all morning. That is the GOLDEYES! I learned that a small chunk of goldeye is quite the favorite food for channel catfish. Let me tell you a little secret, when you are purposefully trying to catch goldeyes, they don't want to bite. Strange, eh?

Rusty's event was a blast. I caught a good number of catfish, after I learned what the secret bait was, most between 3-5 pounds. What I realized was that a 5lb catfish will fight harder than any fish I've ever caught before. I also realized a catfish tastes better than any other fish I've ever eaten too. Rusty hosted one heck of a fish fry and guess what was on the menu? You guessed it... Catfish!! Yes. It was delicious. There were also plenty of prizes to go around from local businesses and fishing industry sponsors. A big Thank You goes out to the sponsors. Us participants definitely noticed your generosity! I got lucky to win a T-shirt and a couple nice glass Budweiser glasses. My dad hit the jackpot by winning a Big Dipper ice fishing slush scoop and a Little Dipper Scoop too. What a lucky man!! He will put those prizes to good use! Thanks to Mark Edevold for donating the Big & Little Dipper Scoops as well as the Lost River fish batter!!

Once again, a big thank you to Rusty Miller of Wiskers Guiding Service for organizing the 1st Annual FishingMinnesota Crookston Cat Gathering. Rusty & his family worked hard to organize this event, collect door prizes from sponsors, and host one heck of a fish fry. We'll be back next year Rusty! Oh yeah, the big fish money went to the only girl fishing the event- Timdog's girlfriend Bridey with an 8+ pound channel cat! Congratulations!!