How do you catfish?

We drift for them in the fall when they school up, with cut shad. We use a rig similar to the drop shot rig. I use a three way swivel with a three inch piece of real stiff mono(#30lb test) and a circle hook. This keeps your hook from fouling your rig, and a light piece of mono for the sinker. That way it breaks off at the sinker and you don't have to retie the whole thing as it is a pain in the kester. I fish main creek arms. I use just enough weight to keep contact with the bottom. Turn your boat side ways into the wind and just bump the trolling motor to keep drifting side ways so you can use the whole boat. Throw your rigs out up wind it doesn't take a big cast I like a little short pitch. Let it sink and hang on its kinda like a worm tap or sometimes its like getting smacked with a shovel. Bring your kids as this is a fun way for them to fish. When its on all you can really do is bait hooks for your passengers when its slow you can fish two or three rods but I don't advise it as the fish are normally schooled and when you hit one you'll hit a bunch. I sometimes will use a marker buoy to mark a hole but don't throw it right in the spot because you may spook them off. Good Luck. Drew

Most of the fish fry events I've been involved in was to roundup quite a few cat pounds, in the past using trot lines. But ever since a 40#er woke up before I knew he was next to find, the line took off and ripped a half dozen trebles through my thigh. In the wrestle my knife fell beyond reach. I had to just hang onto the line until I found a stickup stob to wrap it around. I got enough slack to reach the knife. I did boat he animal even though the deck of the boat was super slippery with my own blood, the cat contributing to the mess. I gave up on trot lines.

The other two methods I prefer remain. One is to go down once a year to the Lock & Dam on the Arkansas River at Notrebes Bend Park. There I camp and go snagging really big cats, sometimes 80#ers. We cast a 6-9 oz weighted snagging treble on 100# line using big saltwater rigs, casting from the 100 yd line to the dam face. That's a 300' cast. If the cats make it to the house still alive we put them in a pool to burn off most of the fat, then process.

When I go camping on an island I always take some jug lines. It consists of a 2-3 gal plastic jug like oil comes in, holding up a nylon line with a rock tied as a sinker. I'll snap big baited trebles every 10 feet or so down to within 5' of the sinker. When I begin getting bit I remove all hooks not in that biting zone. Bait is almost always frozen custom blood bait covering sharp trebles, or if going after flatheads, a tub of gold fish is used. The jugs are labeled with my ID, then dropped along channels from main river to small tributaries until I pattern the cats' stomping range. They have to be watched closely, so I bass fish in their vicinity. When I see a jug take off skiing I know to go harvest and reset it. I use a heavy leaf rake head on the end of a rope to snag the fleeing jug line.

Jim

Yep, rotten chicken livers and gizzards, and swollen puky blaze red cheap hotdogs are fine baits. Put a whole frank on your mainline using a needle of some kind to pass the line through length-wise. Then tie a treble on. Slide the frank down the line over the treble shank. Panfish can't get going on a whole uncut frank, so it remains for a big cat to swallow it whole. But by far the best consistent producer is BLOOD, frozen on a hook.

Recipe? Glad you asked.... :champion:

Buy or just get some fresh blood from a packing plant that allows that. Chicken is best, pork & beef second best. Really any blood will do, including fish blood. Find some ice cube trays that make big cubes. Put as large a treble in each hole shank up. Mix the blood bait. Stir in some Wheaties to make it mushy and hold better. A tsp of anise oil helps. That ought to be in the spice section of grocery stores. Using a blender fine chop any meat gone bad in the fridge, like rotten franks, chicken organs, bologna, ham gone bad. Between batches freeze any of that instead of tossing out. Mix into blood. Pour blood mixture into the ice cube trays level. Place outdoors in the sun with clear plastic covering, sun-bake till hard. Freeze them up separately on a cookie sheet, then bag and keep frozen until cat catchin time. Tie or snap on baited hooks. Replace melted bare hooks with another frozen baited hook. Some families come to Ouachita once every year using that, taking away hundreds of pounds of fillets for a week's work, using up to about 3,000 hooks on trot lines, jug lines, limb lines. Limb lines are simply a line with hook and sinker tied to a tree branch hanging over the lake.

A word of warning. Don't try to remove fish from hook while on a line. Cats are known to take a leap, ripping hands and our other body parts. Remove the hook, leave it in the fish till you process the cat.

A lot of work, but fun and rewarding if you like lots of catfish.

Jim

Put this together to fish for the big cats this summer. Plan on using gills as bait.