High Water Catfishin

By Jimmy Houston
ITJ

1/4/2008

This year, Texas and Oklahoma received a large amount of rain. There has been flooding everywhere. Most of the lakes are well over the flood stage and most major rivers and creeks are well out of their banks. With this condition in mind, bass fishermen and crappie fishermen are not too thrilled about the current conditions, but there is one type of angler that is ecstatic about the high water, catfish fishermen. Oh yeah! Its catfishing time when the water is muddy and all up in the willows, grass, weeds and in the junk along the bank.

What to do? Go fishing! Here’s how. Now, there may be variations on this, but for the most part this is how I would do it. I like a john boat rigged with a trolling motor and an outboard to get me to the bank and back. I don’t have to go to run far, just across a bay or two, around a point, and in the backend of a major creek that is flooded by about 9 feet or so. Water is midway up the trunks of most trees and the small trees are under water. This would be prime catfishin territory. Why? Because the food they eat is absolutely everywhere. They come in and gorge themselves. Why would they do that? Because the post spawn is over with and now its time to eat!! Just like the largemouth bass do.

I like to use juglines. Everyone knows how to set a jugline. Put a weight on the end of a strong string, attach to it about three hooks, and tie the other end to a milk jug. Put your name and address on the jug. You’re now legal. On the hooks, I put stink bait made from Catfish Charlie’s Stink Bait and soured chicken guts. Blood bait will work if it’s thickened and prepared dough baits are fine too. The best in many guys books are peeled shrimp. I prefer to use the whole shrimp that are not peeled and are soured. I peel all but one or two pieces of the circular shell off and put one shrimp per hook. Others guys like to cut perch. It’s also called yellow perch or bluegill, however you call it, you slice the shrimp in half and impaled on a hook. Other guys put live perch on the hook which invariably ends up getting very tied up and tangled on the surrounding cover.

For some, this is the time to trotline. That’s fine, but trotlining is normally done across a bay, pocket, or a creek channel. We are in the woods baby! We are jammed up and jelly tight into flooded timber. The catfish, to be truthful, are everywhere around you. They are in all sizes too…from 5 lbs to 50 lbs. Not a good time to fall out of the boat or go skinny dipping. And above all else, watch the overhanging branches around you for dangling reptiles such as cottonmouths and copperheads. It’s the season for them.

After you have your choice of tackle all baited up and in place…here is the trick…get 100 lbs of calf pellets. If you can find pecan meal, from a company that processes pecans for sale, you can buy 200 lb toe sacks for about $40. Wet this down and let it set in the sun for a couple of days and sour. Then spread this in the area where your rigs are set out. Some will float, but most of the pellets or meal will sink and set up an attractant for the catfish to target to as they meander about.

After you have a nice haul of several fish, dress them out and ice them down. Take the guts and put them in cloth bags or rags, and tie them up nice and tight and drop them in the same area as your rigs are set. You are in essence creating a very fertile area for fish to come to and feed, as opposed to waiting on the fish to discover your rigs.

Once the fish are really onto your spot, you will harvest a myriad of fish species beside catfish. You will get freshwater drum, gar, buffalo and carp. Take all of these that you don’t want and cut them up, and use them for bait or sack bait as you did with the guts. This is all legal, so don’t be alarmed if the game warden checks you. He is checking your license more so that what you are doing. In essence, you are doing a favor for the wildlife people by catching these trash fish. However, catfish is a delicacy down here in the south, more so than in the north.

The second area to do high water catfishing is at the damn. Lakes that were built with rip rap are ideal areas for catfish to spawn. They love the rocks and gravel and will spawn there year after year. Set up your rigs the same as in the flooded timber areas, but anchor to something that is stable. Therefore, juglining is a better solution than trotlines. They are easier to control and easier to retrieve. Be sure to retrieve them because if you leave one unattended for any length of time you can be fined a substantial fine.

All in all, catfishing this way is a lot of hard work and requires long hours, but the end result is a good harvest of tasty catfish for you and your friends. Also the elimination of rough fish that pollute the public waters and finally promulgating the harvest of catfish as a sportfish leads to bigger and better populations of catfish in all waters.

Good catfishin to ya

Jimmy