(credit Alex Hinson): Some might think it’s futile to fish for farm-pond catfish in winter, but Alex Hinson of Paron, Arkansas shows what often results after just a few minutes of fishing on a cold February day.
by Keith “Catfish” Sutton
Don’t overlook this mid-February holiday as a great time to get outdoors and catch some catfish to eat.
Want to catch a mess of good-eating catfish for your next fish fry? Load up your tackle and head for the nearest farm pond during the Presidents Day holiday weekend, February 15-17, 2020.
A friend and I have been doing this for years. A pond near his home holds scores of 1- to 5-pound channel cats. During February, they stack up like cordwood in the deepest water, making them easy to find and catch. Having an extra day off work allows us time to catch dozens. Some we keep to eat. Some we release. Always we have fun. Here’s how we do it.
The first order of business is a trip to our local grocery store where we buy fresh, not frozen, chicken livers, the cheapest and best channel-cat bait you can find. On a typical outing, each of us will use a pound or more. Five bucks will buy plenty, which we store in a cooler on ice. You can keep the liver in the tub provided by the store or in a zip-seal plastic freezer bag.
When we reach the pond, we find a comfortable sitting spot on shore adjacent to the deepest water, which is usually near the levee or dam. Cold water temperatures this time of year push catfish into the depths, so placing your bait in the deepest hole is important. If you don’t know where that hole is, take time to ask the pond owner when obtaining permission to fish. He or she will undoubtedly be able to point you in the right direction.
A simple fishing rig works great. Place a 1/2-ounce egg sinker on your main line and tie a barrel swivel at the line’s end. Tie a 2-foot-long leader to the swivel’s other eye. To the end of that, tie a snap swivel. Run the eye of a 3/0 treble hook through a piece of liver and snap it onto the swivel. Or, if you anticipate releasing some of the fish you catch, use a similar-sized J-hook instead of the treble, and run it back and forth through the toughest parts of the bait several times.
A 7- to 8-foot, medium-action spinning combo spooled with 8- to 10-pound-test mono works great for lob-casting the liver. If you put too much “oomph” into your cast, the liver will fly off. But if you side-arm it with an easy throw, the bait will stay on and sink to the bottom where hungry cats lurk.
You may be tempted to use frozen liver to prevent fly-offs, but I’ve learned during years of fishing this way that fresh chicken liver exudes more of the tempting proteins catfish like, creating a blood trail that leads fish right to your fishing rig. Frozen will work in a pinch, but not nearly as well as fresh.
Once we’ve started fishing, my friend and I expect almost immediate action. Winter pond cats typically are ravenous and ready to eat, so if we haven’t had a bite within five minutes, we know we missed the mark. This calls for another cast to another spot, but always to deep water. We’ll keep changing our target area until we get the results we desire.
If necessary, we’ll sometimes shift our activity to the pond owner’s johnboat, which is always there for guests to use. Paddling the boat out onto the water allows us to fish vertically so we can easily detect even the lightest-biting fish. The bait is lowered straight down into the hole, and when it reaches the bottom, we turn the reel handle a few cranks so the liver is a foot or so above the substrate where cats can better detect it. When bank fishing, adding a small bobber on the line between our hook and sinker accomplishes the same thing.
If we hit the strike zone and the cats are hungry (they usually are), we’ll be reeling one in soon after the liver reaches the bottom. When that one’s unhooked, we place our enticement in the same spot and repeat. It’s not unusual to catch two to three dozen hard-fighting, cold-as-ice channel cats from a single wintering hole. And coming from that frigid water makes them taste extra delicious.
Fortunately for us, the ponds we fish also have healthy populations of smaller bullhead catfish, too. Bigger specimens have no trouble swallowing the baits intended for channel cats, but if we decide we’d like to catch more of the little ones to eat, we may downsize our tackle and target these bantam brawlers specifically. Chicken liver entices bullheads just like channel cats, but you’ll often hook more of these diminutive fish if you use smaller pieces on smaller hooks and line. An ultralight spinning outfit spooled with 4- to 6-pound-test mono and rigged with a size 6 or 8 long-shanked cricket hook beneath a split shot works wonderfully.
Will you have some time off work during this year’s Presidents Day holiday? If so, follow our lead and head to the nearest farm pond for some great winter catfishing action. You’ll be glad you did.
Arkansas-Style Fried Catfish
Looking for a great way to cook those winter catfish you caught? Use this tried-and-true recipe that gives mild-tasting catfish a little extra twang!
2 pounds catfish steaks and/or fillets
1 (3-oz.) bottle Louisiana hot sauce
4 cups milk
1 cups yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup flour
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Peanut oil
Marinate catfish 1 to 2 hours in a mixture of hot sauce and milk. Remove fish and drain.
Combine the dry ingredients in a large plastic bag. Add the fish a little at a time and shake to coat.
Cook the fish in 2 inches of peanut oil in a deep fryer heated to 365 degrees. Fry until the thickest part of the fish flakes easily with a fork, about 5 to 6 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining fish. Serves 4-5.
