
What would you rather do this winter: Clean your reels? Or tie into a giant freshwater fish the size of a small deer? Here’s how to hook into a monster.

Mark Hicks Tells You How To Catch Catfish


The Equipment To Catch Catfish

The Bait To Catch Catfish



Look for blues suspended off the edges of points, humps, and offshore flats in at least 15 feet of water. At 20- to 35-foot depths, they often hold 5 to 10 feet off the bottom. Tactic: Suspended Animation
Mark catfish with a depthfinder. Then set your slip bobbers to keep the live bait 1 to 2 feet above the blues. Put your rigs out 25 to 75 yards behind the boat. Place the rods in holders, and drift over the fish. If there’s little wind or current, you can run very slowly back and forth over the cats with an electric trolling motor. Either way, the boat doesn’t affect the fishing because it’s 25 to 75 yards away by the time the bait reaches the fish. Field & Stream Online Editors

The plan To Catch Catfish
Hefty cats stack up in the heads, in the tails, and along the steep edges of deep pools on the outside of river bends. You may need your depthfinder to pinpoint them. If you’re fishing a river that’s been channelized by a lock-and-dam system, concentrate on the banks of the old river channel. Tactic: Give Them The Slip
Anchor 100 feet upstream of a pool. Slip the boat downstream to the head and cast bottom rigs with cutbait, positioning one on the shallow side of the drop and the other on the deeper side. Put your rods in holders. If you don’t get any takes in 20 minutes, slip another 20 yards downstream.

Roger A. Rohrbouck with 101lb catfish

Charles Ashley Jr. with 116 lb catfish

