Caveat hic sit monstra (beware here there be monsters)
Oh, Joco, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this
More time that I should probably admit….
I have unconfirmed reports from reliable resources that they have caught channel catfish in the Ottawa river in the area of 15 to 20 pounds. I have no doubt that you can get a 20 pound beast in the Ottawa river. The one thing that plays against here in the north is that the growth season of the channel catfish is shorter than places farther south (in-fisherman had an article on this in the past couple of years). As their size in the end becomes bound by age I don’t think we will ever to consistently see 20+ lbs channel catfish coming out of the Ottawa river, though they are undoubtedly possible.
Time and time again it has been demonstrated that the best place to fish for large channel cat fish is in the tailwash of dams. The feed on stunned fish and fish parts as they come there the generators. So if I had time and a boat, this is where I would start my search. As always the best time to catch the big ones is pre-spawn.
Here is a trick someone taught me. Open up the Ontario fish consumption guidelines (
http://www.ontario.ca/environment-and-e ... tario-fish); do a search by species for channel catfish. Look at the lengths reported. Generally if they report a length there have been enough samples caught to report data. Look at this as a statistical analysis and equate it roughly to the 1st or 2nd standard deviation of a normal curve. This is the weight to length calculator I use:
http://fishandboat.com/images/pages/fis ... ength3.pdf
Looking at the Ottawa area here is the data I extracted:
Ottawa River:
Morrison Island to Chats Generating Station (Fitzroy) Up to 30 Inches (13.3 pounds)
Chats Generating Station (Fitzroy) to Chaudière Falls up to 28 inches (10.6 pounds)
Chaudière Falls to Carillon Dam up to 26 inches (8.3 lbs)
Other Ottawa area:
Madawaska Lake Upto 30 Inches (13.3 pounds)
Missisipi River Upto 26 inches (8.3 pounds)
South Nation: Plantagenet Reach Upto 22 inches (4.7 pounds)
St. Lawrence:
St. Lawrence River 15 - Lake St. Francis from downstream of the Moses Saunders Dam to Quebec border Upto 20 inches (3.4 pounds)
St. Lawrence River 12 - Thousand Islands area St. Lawrence River from east of Kingston to Brockville upto 22 inches (4.7 pounds)
So your best bet of the Ontario side of the region is between Morrison Island to Chats Generating Station (Fitzroy)
I do not know much about the Quebec side but a guide once told me that they get real big at the base of the Carillon dam
From my personal experience in the past couple of years I can pretty much say that with some effort and targeting you can easily catch 4-6 pound channel catfish in the Ottawa area. 6lbs is likely the top side of the first standard deviation on the normal curve. The largest I have caught (it happened to be from shore) was in the 9.5 pound range near the mouth of the Madawaska.
Tips for catching bigger channel catfish include moving from worms to dead bait (I found any oily fish works). Worms will catch you a lot of average to smaller fish but rarely a bigger one. When it is still cold I have found catfish metabolism very low and they seem to preffer worms and small shrimp (hint raw works better than cooked). That being said you can catch a catfish on anything from hotdogs, boillies, soap, etc…
Other interesting spots for channel catfish in Ontario, a quick look at the consumption :Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair list consumption entries for fish over 30 inches 15-16 pounds
Channel catfish mecas in Canada: Red River in Winnipeg (biggest channel catfish in Canada 46 lbs); Dunneville – Channel cat fish festival
Does anyone know if they kept the records of the winners from the arnprior catfish derby while it was still around?
A little tidbit: Flathead catfish have been reported in Ontario:
http://www.ontariofishes.ca/fish_detail.php?FID=83
Does anyone have data from Quebec from here to Montreal?
This was strangely cathartic....
