catfishin in the south

[deerslayernc3]

whos ready to catch some monsters

[Mark k]

I'm always ready to catch a few Cats for the table. But only manage to catch them by accident, You know something that I don't??

[Jim Hatch]

My wife and I enjoy catfish as table fare. We look
forward to the spring spawn when the big boys and
girls come shallow and eat almost anything.*G* Fine
eating for sure. Warm regards, Jim

[poke flyfisher]

The only advice I have for successful catfishing is to find a pond or lake where the catfish population seems to be genetically programed to take a fly. There are two lakes that I fish where I consistently catch more catfish than bass on Clousers and Buggers. I try the same exact patterns in all the other waters where I know a healthy population of catfish exist and never catch catfish. Not sure why.

[Mark k]

poke, Thats kind of what I have found, Buggers and Minnow type flies, Ive even caoght them on Nymphs intended for Bluegills but haven't found a "Go To" for Cats.

[Joe Billingsley]

Using the Infamous Pink Worm (except it was red), I caught a channel cat on almost every cast all one afternoon at a pond a year or two ago. I thought I had the secret. I haven't even had a bite from a channel cat that I know of on it since. Strange...
Joe

[deerslayernc3]

i usually catch all of mine on a chartreuse and white streamer



chip

[Bill Blake]

I usually catch catfish when I just let a black wooly bugger sit on the bottom. . . often when I've got part of the line tangled on my shoelaces and I haven't started retreiving the fly yet. I doubt it's even neccesary to retrieve the fly, if that's not too boring for you.

[poke flyfisher]

Bill Bill, you've got to give catfish more credit than that!! I'll assume you were kidding. I've caught channel catfish on bass poppers as big as 4 lbs., on fast moving spinner/woolly worm combos, on nymphs, on clousers as fast as I could strip and even an 11 pounder on a bugger the instant it hit the water. I even had one jump one time! These are truly game fish and should be respected as such! Letting the fly sink to the bottom and waiting for a pick-up is a formula for a long, boring and unproductive day.

[Bill Blake]

I wasn't kidding! I'm not trying to besmirch catfish I always catch catfish on the local ponds that way, especially when I'm not trying for them! I never catch them on poppers (or anything else for that matter), clousers or anything moving fast, perhaps those catfish know that I'm unprepared when I'm trying to untangles line from my shoelaces and they're just trying to cause trouble!