May 2026 • Nebraskaland 53
CHANNEL CATFISH
One of the most overlooked species that roam Lake
McConaughy is the channel catfish. It is one of the more
dependable fish that can be caught on a daily basis, from
ice out all the way to ice up.
In the spring, they can be caught on cut-up baits,
chicken livers or other bottom-dwelling recipes with fairly
common regularity.
Once June arrives, and their spawning occurs, a lot of
these male catfish will be protecting beds in shallow water
from 1 to 8 feet. Any type of vegetative structure could hold
eggs and the males watching those eggs. Anything from
spinnerbaits, crankbaits and jigs will catch fish, and slip
bobbers with leeches and crawlers is a preferred method.
As the summer goes on, catfish will suspend with
alewife schools right along with the walleyes and wipers.
Trolling crankbaits 10 to 20 feet below the surface in 40 to
100 feet of water is the preferred method here. Watching a
planer board being taken down by a 5-pound catfish is like
watching a bobber go down in the shallows.
Once you find a pod of feeding catfish, they pretty much
bite the entire day. This is a great time to take a kid out
on the boat and tire them in an hour reeling in catfish with
200 feet of line out. Occasionally, they will stack up on
the face of the dam during the late summer and throwing
R a t- L -Tr a p s o r a ny o t h e r t y p e s o f c r a n k b a i t s o r
spinnerbaits is an excellent way to catch them.
As fall settles in, channel cats follow the wipers and
walleyes, and slabbing spoons are the preferred method.
WHITE BASS
White bass are making a strong comeback in the lake after
a die-off a couple years ago. Again, like with most predator
species, they can be caught in the shallows on windy days.
With the onset of June, white bass tend to suspend out
in 10 to 30 feet of water off the sand banks and points. You
can fish for them at night over lanterns, but this technique
doesn't seem to be quite as effective at Mac like it is at
other lakes.
In the summer, fish will get deeper following the baitfish.
Trolling crankbaits is the preferred method to go after white
bass. This is also the time that I like to throw flutter spoons
over the top of them in deeper water.
Casting lipped jigs like the Luck-E-Strike
Scrounger tipped with a plastic fluke is an
effective way to find fish.
Blake hooked this big channel catfish along Kingsley Dam.
Flutter spoons are great for white bass (right).
