Catfish pro Joey Pounders of Caledonia, Mississippi brings in some big catches
of big catfish by studying current and river levels where he fishes this time of year.
Catfish Basics #163—with Joey Pounders
This time of year, the water where I usually fish is around 50 degrees or lower. There are two main questions I have when pulling up at the boat ramp with an empty baitwell or an empty livewell: 1) where is the bait? and 2) where are the fish?
Current and river levels are usually all you need for that. You see, if the current is going good, I know the baitfish are not in the channel, so that puts them in the sloughs and backwater areas.
I primarily focus on bait in 10 feet of water or less when the water is running. I may catch thousands of shad but only keep 75 to100 that are live-bait size, 7 to 10 inches, for the day. With that size, I have the choice to either use it as a live bait, fillet or chunk.
I strongly believe in fresh bait. Either I use it alive and it’s very frisky, or I cut it up, utilizing the fresh blood that I know gives me the absolute best chance to attract a nice catfish. I believe in quality over quantity because the right-size shad will always help you get that extra edge to catch the trophies.
As far as the catfish go, I believe the current and not the temperature dictates where they will be. Don’t worry about the depthfinder as much. Look for breaks and swirls in the current instead. We all need to get back to our roots, understanding fish and why they are in that location.
Catfish know that bait leaves the channels to go into calmer water, so the cats eventually will follow. At times, it is hard to target big fish in these conditions. But sometimes these guys shallow up and move into structure they normally wouldn’t be in during the summer or slacker current. It’s important to be sure to fish these areas.
If the water level is very high and current is too fast, I like to fish the lake area or the high side of a dam. If you are fishing the high side of the dam, the water never really elevates. It just increases in current. The fish will shallow up and feed in as little as one foot of water. These conditions generally aren’t the best for trophies, but you can catch tons of eaters.
With that being said, I usually try to fish five to six spots per trip that I have never previously fished because the biggest catfish I’ve ever caught generally come off the spots the first time I fish them.
