Follow these tips to improve your catfish game
During the past decade, catfish anglers have become more proficient in targeting their quarry. And it’s not just the quantity of catfish caught, it’s quality fish, too. The increased popularity of catfish tournaments has been a catalyst for professional tournament fishermen to learn how to better target colossal catfish.
Understanding how the pros, including catfish guides and tournament anglers, catch catfish can help anglers become more productive.
Both of these groups target and catch catfish, but guides often deal in quantity of catfish. For tournament pros, a handful of bites from quality fish can mean a big check.
Quantity with Quality
Professional fishing guide Eric Sellers hails from a family of professional guides at Santee Cooper where his father Gene, and uncle “Big John” Sellers, were highly productive catfish guides.
“As a professional fishing guide, my role is to ensure my clients have an enjoyable day on the boat,” he said. “Catching a lot of fish is almost always a good recipe for success. I have to keep in mind that for many fishermen, catching a 15-pound catfish may be the biggest fish of their lifetime. So, catching a cooler full of fish with plenty of 10- to 20-pound catfish usually makes for a wildly successful day.
“But my fishing process doesn’t exclude the potential to catch trophy fish, because we do catch our fair share,” he said. “We love to catch big fish. But I do my best to put the boat on a lot of fish that are willing to bite.”
Sellers (704-477-0846) said his fish-finding process this time of year begins by locating forage that catfish are utilizing.
“Locations where I find forage, and catfish, vary by the time of year and certainly from lake to lake,” he said. “At Santee Cooper, at this time of year, threadfin and gizzard shad, white perch and blueback herring are excellent forage possibilities. Later on, as the water warms, mussels and/or snails can be high on the forage list. I recommend fishermen determine the forage patterns on their lake for specific times of the year.”
Sellers said to catch lots of fish, and certainly big fish, he’ll use what they’re already eating as a bait.
“Herring and shad are great here, and I’ll vary the size of baits until I determine the daily pattern.”
Sellers said in late winter and early spring the water temperature is still low. But the trend is usually on a warming pattern by late February and into March. Fish are becoming more active and typically are moving from deep-water patterns to shallower areas.
“I rely heavily on electronics and I’ll usually have a couple of spots in mind where I’ve had recent success that are good places to begin the daily search,” he said. “I’ll graph the area before I set rigs out to ensure I’m seeing a lot of forage as well as plenty of fish signals that I believe are catfish.”
Sellers said he prefers to fish around humps and ledges this month so he can target multiple depths until he gets the daily pattern. Once he gets a defined depth pattern, he’ll focus efforts in the basic depth range.
“I prefer to drift fish to cover more water,” he said. “As the water warms and catfish become more active, I know they’re on the move. I’ll often need to change areas and depth patterns to stay on fish. Once on a good daily drift pattern, I’ll re-drift that area again, if it’s producing the size fish I want. But I monitor the graph to ensure I still see forage and fish.”
Sellers said the key is to stay in areas where he’s getting plenty of bites and hookups. When a client catches a much larger fish in an area that’s producing plenty of action, he’ll work that area diligently.
“If conditions are right for one big fish, odds are high more are in the area,” he said.
Quality with Quantity
Tournament professional fisherman Jeff Manning, from Gastonia, NC has been actively fishing tournaments for 20 years and has won multiple catfish tournaments in both North and South Carolina. He still feels the passion of finding and catching quality catfish.
“I love to fish for numbers of fish and I enjoy that immensely. But when fishing a tournament, my mindset morphs to targeting big fish,” he said. “Through my years of tournament fishing I’ve learned that when catching lots of fish in the 5- to 15-pound class, I’m having fun but likely a bad day in terms of winning a tournament.”
Manning said his experience has proven to him that catfish associate in general size classes until they’re in the mid 20-pound range. If he’s catching a lot of ‘teeners’ he’s likely going to move from that area.
“Certainly, a big catfish can be in that area, but I’m less likely to catch it because smaller catfish are more aggressive, reducing the opportunity for the bigger fish to eat,” he said. “I target areas where I mark fewer fish, scattered over a general area. That’s been a recipe for big-fish success for me.”
Anchor down
Manning said many highly successful tournament anglers prefer to drift fish, but his personal style is to anchor.
“I want to target specific fish when I’m pursuing trophy catfish,” he said. “I live and die by my electronics, but I don’t require seeing a lot of fish and forage signals to drop anchor. If I see a good ledge or hump, with a steep transition from shallow to deep water, that’s potentially a good area. If I mark some forage and a few scattered fish in that general area, I’m probably going to fish it.
“Here’s the ringer – if I like it enough, I don’t have to mark any fish to anchor and fish,” he said. “Even with due diligence with my electronics, I can’t scan the entire area. So big fish can be around that I don’t mark.”
Manning said he sets limits on time and he’ll move after a couple of hours and search for another area.
“When hunting big fish, it’s possible to have a big cat load up before I get all my rigs out,” he said.
Manning said big catfish are opportunistic feeders. They’re big, so they don’t want to expend a lot of energy finding and eating food.
“I mentally mark where I see fish on a ledge or hump when searching,” he said. “I anchor the boat so I can cast a bait right in front of some of those specific fish. Then I wait.”
Manning said on a good day of tournament fishing, he’ll average a bite every 45 minutes or so. But sometimes it is a 2-hour wait between bites.
“But if those bites are from 30- to 50-pound catfish, then I’m having a great day,” he said.
Manning targets points, humps and ledges. And this month, he often prefers fishing around the main river channel, or major tributary channels. Big catfish may not always be in deep water. But odds are, good deep water is often nearby.
Manning said he has a lot of fresh bait to tempt big cats.
“I want what’s natural in the lake I’m fishing and often that’s gizzard shad and white perch,” he said. “I’ll distribute bait sizes all the way from a live, 10-inch white perch down to thumb-size cut bait. I let them tell me what they want.”
Similarities in Patterns
While these two professional strategies differ in the fish-catching goals, several similarities exist between these professional mindsets.
These pros use quality gear and tackle capable of coping with the upper spectrum of big fish they may potentially hook.
They may search for different targets, but they’re both highly dependent on electronics to succeed. Their concepts of bait overlap in that both try to give the catfish what they want on any given day. Size of bait matters and they give the fish options.
And either method can produce quality and quantity of catfish. But you can tip the scale in your favor, for quantity or quality, by fishing like the pros.
It’s kind of like deer hunting
Jeff Manning said big catfish are often attracted to the same general areas, but they’re not necessarily associated with one another as in a tight group. He anchors on a point, ledge or hump and fan-casts rigs around the boat.
“It’s common that if I catch two or three big fish from that spot, they’ll come from different areas on that setup,” he said. “If the spot has the right ingredients, big fish will come.
“Patience is necessary for quality catfish,” he said. “A good analogy is deer hunting. A hunter studies deer sign, knows where the deer eat, checks trail cameras that indicate a big buck is in the area. But he has to put in the time in the stand to harvest the trophy. It’s the same with catfish. I find the right habitat, see some forage, mark a few fish on my electronics and I give them a chance to join me in the boat.”
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