Catfishing in the upper alleghany

About a week and a half ago coming back from a relatively slow night of catfishing, I scare a deer off the side of the road.  he literally leaps into my car, landing on my hood and rolling onto the side doing damage to my lights and passenger doors.  well, these things happen.  despite being a pretty frequent driver onto the roads going from warren to the tailwaters; I haven't had an deer collision in 8 years.  so maybe I was due.

anyways its been an adjustment.  for some freakin reason fixing the car seems like its been taking forever.  and I've gone like fishing twice in 2 weeks. anyways, besides fishing withdrawl, the other big consequent is the reasonable, yet difficult decree from my wife.  I'm NOT taking the rental car fishing.  OMG. thats a tough rule.

of course there are spots near town, but the tailwaters was like my spot; and I made peace with her, and felt that good or bad, my honey spots were generally the best.  I had faith in them and could wait out the occasional fishless hours knowing that it would get better...

which is where I was BEFORE the accident cuz'  catfishing took a steep nosedive in the third week of june and really hadn't recovered by the night of the suicidal deer.  I was pretty sure that the catfish (espacially the bigger ones) were in spawn and all hunkered into rocks and holes.
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anyways since my accident I have gone fishing twice. and both times been relatively faithful to my wifes decree.  spots through the woods like the tailwaters and a couple starbrick places were offlimits.  instead I tried to focus on what seemed to work at the tailwaters.  high current spots where the are indications of a sudden dropoff and near a current seam.

both spots were up here in town.  first at the confluence of the conewango/allegheny and the second up at glade bridge right where the island ends and the river comes back together....  the trip to glade last night was a particular stretch as it involved walking at night in relatively fast moving water at some points over knee high.  I'm not so sure it was a good idea

and both spots were dismal failures.  only the slightest indication of a bite.  prolly nothing more than either madtoms or crawfish.
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So, I'm trying to figure out if its the location or the spawn or just luck.  Not even up in my honey holes is a given 2-3 hours a guarenteed bite (although the percentage of trips yielding one good bite in three hours is very high, once catfish arrive).  I've noticed before that the spawn up here is wierd and not when it occurs further south.  but three weeks seems a long while even for spawn.

I am beginning to wonder.  Its odd.  I have in the past looked hard for cats in this area (between glade and starbrick).  and yet NO spot has even come close to the productivity of the tailwaters.   maybe its just special??? 

anybody with ideas?  is anybody here any reports of improving catfishing up my way?  do anyone have a sense of how long spawn should  act or have a new take about where to look.  down south I've had luck at confluences, but round these parts, strangely I've had no luck.  both spots I just tried are on a confluence.
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maybe I'm being obsessive about chasing cats, but from the reports of a few other friends,  fishing for other fish has been very fickle.  skunked fishing for walleye isn't really any better than skunked fishing for cats.  The only fish I know of that might be feeding pretty well under these conditions is bass, but being a strict night angler its difficult to fish for bass.

did you get any sense on how long spawn lasted down there?

as for bait, it always seemed to me that if nothing was biting at the chicken liver nothing was going to bite cut-bait either (keep in mind that there's no to almost no flats up here).

of course, confidence can be a factor.  its hard to be confident on a new spot, and I truly believe that without confidence you don't catch as much.  thus for sure, its definitely possible to toss out a good spot prematurely.  A couple skunked trips can make a guy discouraged.

Cut sunfish works real well in the rivers

NO!

you are mentioning a spot in the middle of a public property  (navigable river).  Moreover access wouldn't be so easy and the nature of that river is that it could hold alot of anglers if we all decided to try it.  We are a bit to paranoid about spot-burn around here IMHO.

so thanks!

I've never tried fishing anywhere from starbrick to tidioute.  I ought to give someplace down that way a shot.
jason

you know, I have no idea.

I'm kind pondering a lot of things.  While areas downstream was muddy.  up above conewango, they was no murk.  they raised dam levels moderately.
So they'll be no Post-flood bite or anything up here.

but then again, the slow cat bite has to end sometime, and I like cats.