By Marc Murrell
Perry Reservoir long has been known as a crappie factory. Anglers from several states routinely visit this body of water, particularly during winter months, and reap the rewards of fairly consistent year classes of catchable crappie. Throw in a few other species like channel catfish and possibly largemouth bass and Perry is an angler's haven.
And if Perry's latest inhabitant, the blue catfish, takes off it might be known for something much bigger in the future. That would suit some hardcore catfishermen just fine.
"They have grown really well since they were stocked," said Ryan Gnagy, an avid catfish tournament angler of Perry's blue cats. "This could really be something in a few years."
Kirk Tjelmeland, fisheries biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, was thinking ahead when he requested a stocking of blue catfish in 2005. The first load of blue cats, roughly 22,000 ranging in size from 5-8 inches from KDWPT's Farlington Fish Hatchery, were stocked in the fall of 2006.
"They do eat zebra mussels," he said. "We didn't find those until 2007 but we had the opportunity to stock some blue cats, not that they're the silver bullet for zebra mussels, but they do like to eat them."
Maybe even more importantly, Tjelmeland thought blue cats might be a nice addition to the fishery at Perry.
"If you look around and see what Milford (Reservoir) has and realize that blue cats are a native fish to the Kansas and Delaware rivers I thought it would be a nice fit to our reservoir and we had the opportunity and we took it," he said.
Additional stockings took place in subsequent years and Tjelmeland says that more than 93,000 blue cats have been stocked to date. Growth rates are impressive and with a strong forage base Tjelmeland is excited about the prospects. He's not seen any huge fish in his sampling efforts, but anglers have told him of their success.
"I've had some guys tell me they've caught some over 35 inches, but I haven't seen one of those yet, but it wouldn't surprise me," Tjelmeland said.
It wouldn't surprise Gnagy, either. His personal best blue cat from Perry Reservoir is just more than 24 pounds. It pales in comparison to others of the same species he's caught in tournaments.
Twice he's brought five fish that weighed more than 200 pounds to the scales. Those are impressive fish by any standards, and Gnagy believes Perry could produce some huge catches, too.
Gnagy, 38, looks forward to a time when he can stay close to home fishing for his favorite cats. He's started guiding this year (check out his Facebook page at Prime Time Catfishing, or call 785-213-2590) and has been busy most weekends (he works weeknights at the Target Distribution Center).
His favorite big fish reservoir is Milford and he reasons he'll be on it most weekends from now until fall chasing big blue and channel catfish.
No matter where he's at Gnagy has refined his techniques and targets big fish, although "small" fish under 10 pounds are routinely caught. His day starts with a cast net looking for hand-sized shad as he believes fresh bait (he likes rod-and-reel-caught Goldeye at Milford) is much better than frozen.
He'll cut it into chunks and hook a piece onto a Team Catfish Double Action 5/0-8/0 hook with a 1½-inch float a few inches up the leader. It's rigged either on a three-way swivel or inline with a sinker slider and 2 ounce slinky weight he makes himself out of ¼-ounce bullet weights and a steel leader.
Gnagy uses Team Catfish iCat 71/2-foot, medium-action rods with a baitcasting reel spooled with 65-pound braid. His 24-foot SeaArk Catfish rig, powered by a 200 horsepower outboard, is tricked out with nice seats and LED lights under the canopy for visual assistance while night fishing.
He's got a refined rack of rod holders to drift with the wind out the back of the boat with two rods on the side roughly 100 yards behind the boat and two rods down the middle about 65-70 yards back. If there isn't any wind, he makes his own using his MinnKota Autopilot trolling motor and likes to keep his speed below 1.1 mph, ideally at .7 or .8 mph In big winds he'll use a 77-inch drift sock tied to each of the back corners of his boat to slow his speed.
Gnagy will target large, expansive flats, often in the upper ends of reservoirs. He'll try depths ranging from 12-25 feet and even as shallow as 4-5 feet, depending on conditions and time of year. He enjoys fishing at night.
"There's no doubt you can catch fish during the day but there's a lot less boat traffic at night," Gnagy said. "And in the middle of the summer the temperatures are much more comfortable, too."
Gnagy has used this approach to fun fish as well as traveling from Texas to Nebraska fishing anywhere from 10-20 catfish tournaments each year with great success. He knows it will work at Perry because he's been sampling it recently and fished it several times the week of July 4. His first trip produced some really nice fish.
"We caught two channel cats that were 13 and 16 pounds, a couple 10-pound blue cats and one that went 21 pounds," he said. "And we caught quite a few smaller blues and channel cats, too."
His second trip the same week yielded four blue cats and four channel cats fishing from about 8:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. All fish were within a chunk-of-shad or so from weighing around 7 pounds each and returned to the water (there's a 35-inch minimum length limit on blue catfish to allow them to become established).
"We're going to stock blue cats in Perry for probably two more years and then see where we're at," Tjelmeland said. "If we can document some spawning activity and natural reproduction (most fish don't start until 5-7 years of age) we might look at lowering that length limit to allow some selective harvest."
Even at Milford Reservoir, where there's no minimum length limit for blue cats, Gnagy likes to release any fish more than about 7 pounds. He's personally caught blue cats there that have weighed more than 50 pounds and knows there are bigger ones swimming its depths.
"It's a nice lake for blues," Gnagy said. "And if Perry keeps going I'm looking forward to fishing it more, too."
http://cjonline.com/sports/2012-07-21/outdoors-blue-cats-perrys-new-fish-block
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