Blue cats aren’t stocked in Smithville, and the reservoir’s feeder streams are too small to allow for much reproduction. The number of blues in the lake is accordingly declining and will likely continue to do so. That said, some dandy blue cats are caught here every year.
Picking a northwestern Missouri impoundment isn’t easy. For example, Kansas City’s Lake Jacomo yielded the 34-pound, 10-ounce state-record channel cat back in 1976, and it still boasts a far better than average channel catfishery. Nevertheless, Blue Springs Lake, the headwaters of which is Lake Jacomo’s spillway, is a better bet for catfishermen of any skill level, but especially for newcomers to the sport. Channel cats weighing 1 to 3 pounds are abundant in the lake, and are usually eager to help provide the makings for a fish fry.
NORTHEAST MISSOURI
Big-river catfishermen yearning to see their names in the record book should never pass up a chance to fish northeast Missouri’s share of either the Missouri or Mississippi rivers. The current rod-and-reel state record flathead -- 77 pounds, 8 ounces -- was caught in Montrose Lake in 2003; the 123-pound world record was caught in Kansas in 1998. Missouri River flatheads weighing more than 70 pounds were reported in 2006, so it seems certain that a new state-record flathead is swimming in the Missouri River right now. A new world record is certainly far from certain, but is within the realm of possibility.
In addition, the lower Missouri River produces blue cats weighing up to 90 pounds every year, and the rod-and-reel world-record blue cat, which tipped the scales at 124 pounds, was weighed in at East Alton, Ill. If that lucky angler had launched his boat from the Missouri side of the river, the Show-Me State could already claim to have been home to a world-record catfish.
I tried to avoid picking the same small river twice, but the Grand River does lie within the boundaries set for northeast Missouri from Chillicothe downstream to its mouth. More to the point, right now the lower portion of the Grand is the best small river catfish water in this part of the state. Channel cats are abundant, and as the size of the river increases, so do the sizes of the flatheads and, below Bosworth, blue cats.
Mark Twain Lake’s many feeder streams make it the best reservoir in the state for enjoying the most exciting variation of channel catfishing. When upstream rainfall causes these feeder streams to rise, channel cats by the thousands -- along with a few flatheads and blues -- crowd into them to gorge on the smorgasbord of food suspended in the current.
Flathead specialists using trotlines and juglines catch a lot of 25- to 40-pounders in the upper third of the North Fork, South Fork and Middle Fork arms. Rod-and-reel anglers could do well in these areas as well, but most of this kind of fishing for flatheads takes place in the first few miles of river below the dam.
According to its managing biologist, Forest Lake, in Thousand Hills State Park near Kirksville, provides “some of the best fishing in the northeast region for cats in the 1- to 3-pound range.” Visitors to the lake need to be aware that there is a 90-horsepower limit on boat motors and that the city of Kirksville charges for a permit to operate a private boat on the lake based on horsepower.
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