Focus your winter fishing trips along the South's big rivers for monster blue catfish over 40 pounds.
Dec 9, 2004
Wintertime trophy hunting often brings to mind thoughts of whitetail deer, but it's also one of the best times of the year to catch monster blue catfish that will amaze your friends and put your angling skills to the test.
Big blue cats head to deep water in winter, so they're often easier to locate. Catching them is another matter. You might get one bite all day, you might get 5 or 10. But if the stars and planets line up just right, you'll be tangling with the fish of a lifetime.
"It takes a commitment," says Lake of the Ozarks guide Jeff Williams. "A lot of people can't buckle down and fish for two fish a day. But if someone wants to come to fish for big ones, that's my kind of guy."
On rivers, deep holes attract and hold big catfish. Not only do they provide ambush points, but the water temperature is more stable than near the surface, where air temperatures, wind and current cause it to fluctuate.
Big cats typically stay put in winter, instead of roaming around shallow areas as in spring and summer. On rivers such as the Cumberland or Tennessee, look for depths of 40 to 60 feet where there are natural depressions, or scour holes in river bends.
"The Cumberland River produces some awesome catfishing during the winter months," says longtime guide Warren Byrd, who primarily fishes on Lake Barkley in western Kentucky. "Once you find an area with a big cat in it, chances are there are several more there. One hole could pay off day after day."
The Big Four
The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers flow through Alabama and Tennessee, joining the Ohio before it dumps into the Mississippi. All four are legendary waterways due to their structure,
cover, gravel bars, mussel beds, channel drops, snags and tributaries. They also have stable forage bases of threadfin shad, gizzard shad, skipjack herring and crayfish.
World-record blue cats have come from the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. Keith Floyd, a fisheries biologist with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, says the unpressured catfish population and
its great habitat helps the Tennessee River solidify its stature as one of the nation's best.
"You've just got good habitat," Floyd says. "You have a high fertility level, which in turn produces a large forage base. There is everything there that a fish will want."
Byrd targets big cats from late
October through March, when water temperatures begin to cool rapidly. After locating a hole, usually around 40 to 60 feet deep, he anchors about 50 feet upriver so his baits will drift back. He fishes four rods with oily skipjack herring, using the fillets, head and guts for a sizable presentation. Two lines are cast to the edge of the hole for aggressive fish, and two are cast directly into the hole.
"A normal day will produce catfish in the twenty- to fifty-pound class," says Byrd, who has caught blues weighing more than 80 pounds. "I would say we get four to six big bites a day, but you have to remember that we're targeting trophy catfish."
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