Lake Norman catfish fit for September

Lake Norman may not be the best place to fish for largemouth bass right now, but if you’re into catching big catfish, it’s the place to be.

“Lake Norman catfish are biting now,” said veteran guide Jerry Neeley of Bessemer City (www.Carolinasfishing.com, (704) 629-9288).

Blue cats from 5 to 40 pounds are typical, the 66-year-old guide said.

“We catch 15 or so on a full-day trip and 10 or 12 on a half-day trip,” Neeley said. “Last Saturday, we caught 12 in a half day with the largest one 21 pounds. They’re mostly Arkansas blue cats.”

Neeley uses a “controlled-drift” method, pulling six rods behind his boat, putting out 50  yards of line and bumping baits off the bottom. His terminal tackle includes 1-ounce parachute-cord sinkers that are virtually snagless mated to a Santee Cooper catfish rig (a sinker about 20 inches below a triple swivel and an 18-inch dropper line with a float off the swivel that’s tied to a No. 42 hook impaled with a piece of crappie or bream fillet).

“You have to be careful about your bait; the crappie have to be at least 8-inches long and caught with a hook and line,” Neeley said. “You can’t net ’em or perch or bream; you have to catch ’em with a rod and reel. And you can get a ticket for having undersize fish.”

The key to finding blue cats is a working depth-finder with an LCD screen.

“Blue cats look like haystacks (on a depth-finder),” Neeley said. “For some reason, catfish follow white perch (schools) and Norman is full of white perch. If I see catfish or a school of perch on the depth-finder, that’s where I fish. I also look for (freshwater) mussel beds on the shoreline. Those beds run out into the water and every blue cat I clean usually is full of mussels. Cats go through and eat them rascals; they just vacuum them up off the bottom.”

Neeley, who knows Norman’s depths like the back of his hand, isn’t adverse to giving out his favorite catfish holes.

“I fish the upper end of the lake, Ramsey Creek and Lucky Creek,” he said. “We catch catfish at the ends of the shoals off those creeks, and we fish fairly deep, from 20 to 40 feet.”

That’s why a good depth-finder is a bonus when fishing for catfish at Lake Norman.