Drag perch chunks around tight schools of baitfish
Many cold-weather fishermen say that the best part of the winter is having the lake all to themselves. But if you’re fishing for Lake Gaston catfish, you’ll be sharing the water with some of the biggest blues of the year.
The big cats will be shadowing massive baitfish schools in deeper channels. And dragging a chunk of white perch will put them over the gunwale.
“The colder months are really good for big blues,” said Zakk Royce (252-398-7192), who runs Blues Brothers Catfish Guide Service. He caught back-to-back North Carolina record blues at Gaston in December 2015. “They’ll be keying in on schools of bait like shad and white perch instead of the freshwater mussels they were feeding on in the warmer months. That makes them easier to find and catch.”
Ground zero for Royce in December is the main-river channel and deeper creek channels that are harboring schools of baitfish. He regularly catches blues in 40 to 50 feet of water. But he has been successful all the way to 90 feet, Gaston’s deepest depths. With any luck, a flock of diving seagulls will give away feeding stripers pushing baitfish near the surface. But depth-finding units easily pick up on schools of shad.
Keep the baits on the bottom
“Stripers are active under the schools of shad,” Royce said. “That draws the blues in to pick up the scraps. They’re almost always under them or nearby.”
Royce drags his baits on the bottom, under the baitfish, a majority of the time this month. He trolls at no more than a 1/2-mile an hour. He runs a 6-rod spread: two straight back, two off the gunwales, and two on side planers. On each line is a 3-way drift rig comprised of a 1 ½- to 2-ounce slinky weight and a 12- to 48-inch leader tied to a 9/0 circle hook with a 3-inch peg float in the middle. White perch is the winter bait of choice.
“Perch are easy to get, and they work really well,” Royce said. “The shad are so deep that it’s hard to get a cast net down to them effectively. Perch stay in the creeks pretty much year-round unless really cold weather moves them out to the main lake.”
Perch also feed on smaller threadfin shad and can be found near schools of them in the creeks. Drop a Sabiki rig to them for enough bait for a day of searching for Lake Gaston catfish.
