While fishing a club tournament at Lake Oconee in June, 1999 Carson Browning and I noticed fish hitting on top all around us in the gray half-light before sunrise. I told him I had been surprised several years before when I saw several fish come to the top like that and got a good look at them. They were catfish!
We kept watching as we fished and I pointed out how a carp will jump completely out of the water, making a big splash. We were able to see a couple of them doing that when the sun got bright enough to highlight them. Their shape and gold color, plainly visible when they cleared the water, left no doubt what they were.
I also pointed to the elongated circle left by a gar as it broke the surface nearby. It, too, was distinctive, and we could see its long bill come out of the water and go back down, then the spotted tail would come up and down as it "porpoised" moving slowly down the bank. The gar made no sound even though it was close to us and the lake was very quiet that morning.
Most of the fish we saw jumping would barely come out of the water, and if we were looking at them they always were "bowed" in a half circle like they were trying to get back under the surface as fast as possible. They also had a brownish tinge to them, not as gold as the carp but definitely brown to yellow. They made a splash, not as big as the carp splashes but definitely not a feeding swirl like a bass.
Bass and hybrids, when feeding on the top, rarely come out of the water at all, swirling just under the surface as they feed on shad. They make a popping sound rather than a splash, but these fish were definitely splashing. I told Carson they must be jumping for joy since we could not get them to hit any of our artificial baits.
At ten o'clock the splashing had slowed down a good bit but we still saw it around us. I was fishing a short plastic worm near a tree in the water when something thumped it. The fish felt heavy and fought hard when I set the hook and I had Carson get the net ready. I just knew I had a winner for the bass tournament on my line.
When the fish got near the boat I was extremely disappointed to see a brown catfish! It weighed about three pounds and tasted real good that night after I filleted and fried it, but it did not count in the tournament. Its brownish-yellow color did confirm that was what we had been seeing, and the way it bent its body around almost in a circle in the net was just like the ones we had seen jumping. The cat I caught was a brown bullhead, and Oconee is full of them.
Watching fish on top is always interesting, but it can be frustrating.
