Trophy Blue Cat Fishing Part 2

Trophy Blue Cat Fishing Part 2 by John Sherman
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I know you’re just itching for the rest of the pieces of the puzzle now. Your dreams are filled with visions of gigantic catfish bottoming out your scale. In order to make that dream come true we need to put it all together now.

In part one I covered the basics in tackle needed to land trophy-sized cats. Now, the next most important item is bait. The best thing you can use is something indigenous to the area you’re fishing that the catfish eat daily. If the river is full of bluegill, use bluegill. If the river is full of shad, use shad. Preferred bait of choice on the James River is big ole’ gizzard shad. Get yourself a cast net (and permit) and learn to throw it. Shad can be pretty easily found in creeks and side channels nearly all year long.

The phrase “big baits catch big fish” is true. It is possible to catch a big one on a small piece but bigger baits will keep the small fish away. Using bigger baits is also a good idea because bigger fish want to spend as little energy as possible to eat. A bigger meal is the ticket they’re looking for.

A big shad head or a 6 to 10-inch piece of cut shad is the way to go. Make sure to hook it so the hook point is exposed and the bait does not block the gap. Smaller shad in the 6-10 inch range can also be used by cutting off the tail so it bleeds, and hooking it through the eyes. It may look too big to you but to that trophy, it’s just the right size.

Hook a head in from the mouth and out through a nostril.

Hook a larger piece such as this through a corner leaving the gap clear and the hook point fully exposed. Make sure to remove all scales from the hook point.

Here is a shad cut up and ready to be put on hooks. The head and larger midsection should be cast out to the main deeper target such as a boulder or deep end of a wing dam. The smaller pieces should be cast to a shallower shoreline target and the other out in the channel for smaller fish to get some action! Always throw the tail away as it will tend to spin the bait and also pull it off the bottom.

Your first tool for locating catfish is a fish finder. A good fish finder is important not only to find structure, but to locate the fish as well. If you don’t see any fish on the graph there’s no sense in dropping anchor. Read the manual and practice using it to locate fish. The settings have to be right for fish sitting on the bottom to show up. If the settings are wrong you could ride around all day thinking you aren’t seeing any fish.

The importance of the fish finder is magnified because blue catfish relate heavily to structure. It may be a wing dam, downed tree, underwater boulder, drop-off, or ledge, but it has to be located and ruled a likely spot for the fish to be.

The key to the examples of structure I mentioned is a current break where the catfish can sit out of the current and still have easy access to food. All of them can hold fish year round but depth is the key. Generally speaking a tree in 20ft of water will have a chance of holding bigger fish than a tree in 5ft of water.

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