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GRAND FORKS — To some, the north-flowing Red River separating North Dakota and Minnesota only comes to mind in the spring when it will most often spill over its banks. Channel catfish anglers have quite a different opinion.
In this episode of the Northland Outdoors Podcast, host Chad Koel talks with one of the most experienced catfish anglers on the Red River, Brad Durick of Grand Forks.
“It's the finest channel cat fishery on the planet,” Durick says of the Red.
Durick, a guide , says its not uncommon for his party to pull 250 to 300 pounds of catfish out of the river each day. While he understands the Red’s reputation, he simply doesn’t agree with it.
“What I found is people who grew up here and about the last three generations have been taught to be deathly afraid of it,” Durick says. “And I mean I've literally on two different occasions heard a grandmother and a mother tell a little kid don't look at it or you'll die. And we've taught generations of locals to be scared of it. I'm not a local. So I mean I came in and I didn't know any better. And here I am.”
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Catching huge cats.
“tt's all about the fight,” Durick says. “I mean, people who have never done it and do it for the first time when that fish is kicking their butt running upstream. I just think it's funny because most of them are just absolutely shocked at the pure raw power that they have when they're fighting and they're plentiful.
I mean, fishing is really good.”
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