Tips for Locating and Catching Catfish

What's up guys, Lana and I are going to do some flathead fishing this afternoon? We're not going to get too serious. It will be a fun fishing trip. We're on the Kentucky River. This river is not really known for trophy

catfish

. There are plenty of channel cats and plenty of smaller fish, but who knows, maybe we'll even get lucky and hook up with a big flathead tonight. We are at the end of May. The water temperature is finally starting to rise. It's been stuck at 50 degrees. spring, but it suddenly shot up to 68 degrees 69 degrees really fast, so the bite should be maybe we can get lucky tonight, so I hope you'll join us, let's have a little fun, you see, we've got a big Tree down there which we're going to settle into for a minute.

It's right on a rock ledge. We will use our GPS on our fish finder to set up on this tree. If you haven't seen the video I made. about that you might want to check it out. I'll put a link in the description. It looks like we have a couple of fish around it. Nothing really big, but it's nice to see some activity anyway. Always check your leading and first line. A few feet off your main line at the start of a trip guys, I just found some scratches, nicks, whatever you want to call it, on this piece of blade and this piece of main line right here above my leader, so I cut it off this 40 pound monkey.

It will bring in any size fish you can catch, just make sure it doesn't have nicks. I'll show you the equipment we're using today, this is what I've been doing lately and it seems to be working well, so I got the 40 pound main line here, Berkeley, a big profit, I got a three way jib crane with a weight five ounces on a quick clip, you can put your lighter pound test dropper loop in there if you want, but I usually just use a quick snap just because it's easy. This is a 60 pound Berkeley big game leader line that is a ball and chain swivel.

I like to use them with live bait or if I have a lot of current or both, but they seem to spin. much better than these types of hooks and those live baits going down there and swimming around seems to keep the line from twisting, keep the bait from snagging on itself, so we let go of the ball and chain swivel about 18 inches out. Leading line that is a nine to attack cats. I really like these hooks, especially for live bait. They have a really big gap that is a good hook for a 10 pound fish up to as big as you can catch and they are sharp.

Damn, I really like the design of those big, pretty live contraptions, Chad, and here we are today. Someone who hooks by the nose has a lot of exposed hooks. I'll send him there and let him do his thing. I'm going to make a cut. bait too, but I'm going to put some live bait. These fish should become quite aggressive. I'll put it right on the edge of that big tree out there. I'll show you something I'm very proud of. There's a great group of guys at Catfish Clothing, but now they've started making cutting boards and they look amazing.

There are no boats crossing the board to hit everything with the knife. Well, I'll show you. You just pull a pin and lift. it comes out that easy, but that pin fits in there, they're all machine parts, but you can see you've got big shot designs cut into the back. Nice base of the machine. You actually have inserts here instead of bolts that go everywhere. through it so there's nothing to hit your knife with, I have a place for your pliers, a place for your knife, so you take it out to clean it when you want to put it back in, just line the hole up, slide your pin in, put my pin in. on a little lanyard there and I clip it to one of my rod holders just because I knew I was going to lose it if you want to see them, I'll put a link in the description where you can get it all. that

catfish

company sells it looks amazing they do a great job okay we have baits in the water guys we're going to set up here probably 45 minutes since we got down the big tree and I saw a couple of fish around it and if that no It doesn't work, we're going to continue upstream, so the first place didn't work.

I had a few bites, but no tigers. I don't have much confidence in this bait. We have these shad. We have these live shad. a little stressed, they're not, they're still alive, they just don't have much power left, so I think what we're going to do and I made a mess, I think what we're going to do is raise our heads. to the dam we'll see what's going on up there, get some fresh bait while we're up there, that way we'll be ready for the afternoon bite, so we'll see if we can get up. In this lock chamber there is an old lock that they don't use anymore but I think it's about 10 feet deep once you get up there so it will be a guaranteed bait if we can get in there oh yeah not the biggest tarpon . in the world now it's closer to that, about 13 and a quarter inches.

I don't see many of them on this river, but every once in a while you'll get good, we've got bait, we're going to catch some flatears that I wanted. To share something with you real quick, if any of you are just getting into flathead fishing, tell you that you don't even have a fish finder on your boat. This is a great place to start, you don't even have to turn. Your unit looks for things like this, but you see, we have a big pile of rocks, but that's not what I'm talking about, that's just an added bonus, but we have a huge tree right here, lying in the water, right in The angle of the tree sinking into the water can be said to be a deep bank, but that's a good place to start, guys, find a tree you don't want, one with green leaves, you know, there's only one end on which they want to spend it there. a while but look if you have any rocky banks in your area especially very steep banks look for these big breaks on these steep banks I fish areas like this a lot and it pays off many times guys the sun is starting to set. and we are marking some really nice fish, it's time to make it happen.

It didn't take long, as soon as we got our rods out we had one come down to this minnow, but we're going to find out what we're marking there. Anyway, now this was barreled on a double hook rig. I don't think it's a flat head, but it is small. It feels like a canal cat the way it rolls. An attractive channel cat, although healthy if not necessary. work tomorrow I would keep it and eat it but I don't want to mess with it tonight I hope that's not all we're marking here is cat channel but I don't think it is I think there will be some other things down there let's find out this is a flathead body for sure well, these flatheads take a lot of patience we're going to catch a good fish I can feel it we haven't moved in a while it doesn't feel like a very big fish, although it's definitely a flathead, isn't it So? oh, he's made a mess, he's a small fish, now he knows what's going on, oh, he's made a, he made a mess, he got hooked a little deep, but I don't.

I think it's really in his gills, I hope not, yeah, it just fell right, yeah, nice little flathead, probably five or six pounds, something like that, it's two and probably 30 minutes or so, so I'll put it back in. to this guy to see if we can get another one. one, well, dad, he bit like a canal cat, but he felt heavier than anything we've caught today when I noticed him, what is he, how is he fighting with the flat head or the canal? Is he rolling? No, no, actually, he's rising too fast, he shouldn't. It would be too much to keep it out of the engine that's going to be a flathead oh yeah, another nice little flathead, yeah, sucker head, it's hooked up right, they're coming straight from the shore, that's pretty typical, they're driving the shores, they're It's getting dark, well that hook nailed it.

Didn't you put it under? He stuck it under the tooth pad, yeah, right there under the tooth pad, it's gone, it all ends up going back there with the bilge hits, man, I gotta do something about it, that's what he ate, guys, one little red horse head, cute. fish lantern we were getting ready to hook up and leave but maybe we'll stay a little longer now story of my life I can never leave when I'm here fishing that's the problem hooked once again that's probably the last fish yeah we're fishing on a spot downhill here, oh, it's definitely all ugly channel cat, we've been

catching

channel cats on skipjack, yeah, we're fishing a downhill here, guys, that's it, there's four fish in the spot look, here's another bite, he'll go to town on it, give him just a minute, I'll unhook this one while we wait for that one to make a decision, oh he's a skinny ugly old man that wouldn't even want to eat.

That guy, as ugly as he is, couldn't know better since we're waiting for that fish. I guess I'll bait this one again. It's hard to leave when the fish are biting. That fish swims with him. He's still there. oh yeah, look where he's got, look where he's at, he'll cross every line that would be the biggest of the day right there, he's taking a little drag, but he doesn't feel like a flathead blue, possibly number five if we get him in there. Very good day, especially for the place we are in, there is a mess here, let me hold on real quick if I don't take care of it now, as long as I keep it tight, it's not bad either, it could weigh about 20 pounds, there aren't many. blues on this stretcher, wherever we are, there are two channel cats, two flatheads and a blue right here in a spot that was the second fish on that suckerhead, if it was bigger I wouldn't weigh it like that, but I don't. is.

I'm going to hurt him man he ain't that big 2264 I must have forgotten how big a blue is he's short and fast yeah he's real short he looks like a bigger fish than he is but he's 22, 6'4 he's what I thought. He will be approaching 30. But one day he will be a monster. That's a very pretty fish. Real white coming out of this muddy water. Nice fish. I'm going to put it back inside. He's been out for a minute. Bring it back. Here and let it grow, appreciate the fight, buddy, okay, we'll sit here, I guess probably another three four hours.

No, I'd like to, but I have to work in the morning, so we'll just have a few more minutes. Guys, look what's up, channel, cat, flat blue head, okay guys, let's go ahead and call it a night. I had a great afternoon here fishing, but unfortunately I have to get home, get some sleep. I would love to stay longer. If I could, but we have about a 10 mile boat ride back to the truck, so it gets cold quickly tonight, it's very cold, so I want to thank you all for watching, I hope you learned something. God bless you, see you next. time you