Ok guys!!!

[kyelkhunter3006]

Being an outdoors website, there just HAVE to be some catmen on here.  Let hear stories, see pictures, and talk about the only REAL freshwater sportfish, the crafty catfish!  Everything else is just bait!

[Oldshooter]

Nice post "catfish",.......... er I mean Mr moderator Sir!


Catfish are something I dont catch much of but eat a lot of! I guess if they become scarce and the Restaurants quit selling em I'll have to breakdown and catch my own! There is a place near my home that sells em by the pound, skinned filleted and ready to fry that I frequent often. But i'm happy to hear from any  catfishermen that  have any thing to offer on this subject!

[hunt-m-up]

Didn't get much chance to go locally this year, but we usually make an annual weekend run up to the Red River in North Dakota for Channels in late Sept/early Oct. We don't go all the way up north, but usually end up catching mostly 3-6 pounders with several in the 12-18 lb category. Stink baits for the smaller ones and more action, cut baits, frogs, shrimp for the bigger ones. Just a fun time, takes a bit getting used to seeing the river run North though.

[streak]

I use to do alot of catfishing using the trotline method on Black Bayou on the portion located in N.W. Louisiana. That was the only time in my life that I would smoke a cigar! That was to keep all of the darn mosquitoes away! This was back in the days when there were no insects repellants.
We used all kinds of liver, small perch, blood bait,etc. on the trotline. We also ran the trotlines using pirogues which got mighty interesting
sometimes when you were trying to convince a big catfish to get in the pirogue with you. So the really big ones we whack on the head real good to get them to come around to our way of thinking.
Later on and years later we used to go out to Cross Lake just W.N.West of Shreveport.Here we used cane poles or fly rods with hooks and sinkers along with mainly bloodbait to catch channel cat around the sandbars located in portions o the lake. Talk about fun and good eating!!

[kyelkhunter3006]

The Red River is on my list of places to fish.  I've love to spend a week up there tangling with those monster channel cats.  I've caught a couple of channels pushing 20lbs out of a farm pond, lots of others 10lbs and under.  Now that pond isn't worth a crap.  The owner INSISTS that everything is catch and release, I've no problems with that, but the bluegills have exploded and taken over.  Found a lot of cats floating bellyside up last year, along with some good bass.  

I've fished Santee Cooper a couple times, and it's a great place.  I fought a HOG of a blue for over an hour before it broke me off.  It ws actually caught the next day at the camp next to mine, and it still had my hook in it.  80lbs.  Wish I'd have landed it.  We've caught tons of fish up to 28lbs though.  I also fished the Great Pee Dee river in South Carolina this past summer, caught an 18lb blue, my father caught a 24lb flathead, but nothing monsterous.

Oddly enough, I literally live minutes from the Ohio River, but I've never fished it.  My boat project got stalled due to the slow economy (I own a retail snack/chip route), and I've just not been able to get much time to fish this year.  I'm going to have to hook up with some guys I know from another forum and hit the river, that way, when I get the boat back, I'll have an inkling of what to expect on the river.

My top list of catfish havens to fish:

James River in VA.
Cape Fear in NC.
Red River in ND/Canada.  

Plus anywhere else there's good action with big fish.