For many Arkansans, summertime is catfishing time. Some fish at night, some during the day. Some fish from the bank, others from boats. Some are successful; others are not.
To be sure you’re not in the latter group, it helps to learn about the primary feeding patterns specific to each of the primary catfish species — channels, blues and flatheads — this season. What are catfish likely to be eating? When? Where? Armed with the answers to these questions, the angler can have reasonable expectations of finding and hooking catfish. Without these answers, luck alone determines the outcome.
Here are three patterns you should know when catfishing this summer, one for each major species in The Natural State.
’Hoppers on top for channel cats
If channel cats can find concentrations of favored foods on the surface, they’ll feed on top. If you don’t believe it, drop by a catfish aquaculture operation at feeding time. Fish farmers fatten cats on a diet of floating chow, and when they scatter the food over a pond, you’ll see thousands of whiskers as cats rise to feed.
One natural food that encourages a topwater bite is grasshoppers. When something spooks them from their grassy haunts, they’ll leap, fly and often dive right into the water. If one lands in water inhabited by channel cats, the grasshopper won’t sit long before a cat will come up and eat it. Catfish sometimes feed on other insects as well — mayflies, moths, caddis larvae, hellgrammites and more. But these puny bugs don’t appeal to larger cats the way a fat ’hopper does.
Grasshoppers usually live in tall grass and are relatively easy to catch. A good trick an uncle taught me is to spread an old flannel blanket across the grass, then drive the ’hoppers to it. Their feet stick in the fabric. A fine-mesh insect net works, too. Keep the grasshoppers in a cricket cage until you’re ready to use them.
As catfish bait, grasshoppers work equally on the surface, at middepths or on the bottom. But fishing them as topwater bait is the ultimate thrill. You watch the wake of a catfish homing in on your bait. You see the fish boil beneath it. You witness the hook-set. Catfishing doesn’t get better than that.
To fish a grasshopper this way, secure it to a 2/0 or 3/0 Aberdeen hook with a small rubber band (the type used by people who wear braces or on little girls’ pigtails). Then flip the insect beside shallow cover using a fly rod or spinning outfit. No weight, bobber or other terminal tackle is necessary unless you need something to help you make longer casts. As soon as the bug hits the water, prepare for the strike. Cats hit ’hoppers hard and fast, like a largemouth blasting a topwater plug. Within seconds of each cast, you’ll be enjoying a rod-bending battle, and watching the action as it happens makes it all unforgettable.
Blue cats on skippies
Skipjack herring, which are common in many big Arkansas rivers inhabited by blue cats, constitute a major portion of the blue cat’s diet, and many catfishermen use skipjacks for bait. They’re easily captured in cast nets, on sabiki rigs or on small jigs or spoons.
Skipjacks are active baitfish, moving continuously in large schools. They’re fish-eaters, with minnows, shad and other small fishes among skipjacks’ favored foods. This fact makes them doubly attractive to blue cats, especially in late summer. Here’s why.
In July and August, large schools of skipjacks churn the water’s surface as they pursue young-of-the-year shad. You can see the fish swirling near the surface, with shad jumping about as they try to elude the skipjacks. This activity usually occurs near dawn and dusk, frequently near creek mouths or at the junction of two rivers.
When surfacing skipjacks are sighted, it’s likely scores of blue cats are lurking below. They’re attracted not only by the prospect of a skipjack entree, but also by the many dead and crippled shad left behind when skipjacks slash through a school. Sometimes striped or white bass join the feeding frenzy, too, working on skipjacks and shad alike. This increases the number of injured baitfish fluttering about, another drawing card for gluttonous blues.
For the dyed-in-the-wool blue-cat angler, this is a setting like no other. A 1/64- to 1/32-ounce silver or white jig cast toward swirling fish will usually garner a strike from a skipjack that can be used for bait. Cut the skippy in small pieces, run a hook through one, then cast it toward the swirls, and let it fall to hungry blues waiting below.
Keep your fishing rig as simple as possible for best results. All you need is a circle hook or octopus hook at the end of the line, with nothing more than a split shot or two to carry it down.
Flatheads on sunfish
Wherever flathead catfish are found, sunfish such as bluegills, redears, green sunfish and longear sunfish are found as well. Not surprisingly, flatheads, being fish-eaters, love a meal of these usually abundant panfish. In some waters, sunfish are the No. 1 component of the flatheads’ diet.
Summer flatheads tend to hole up in deep-water haunts during the day and come out at night to feed in shallows. Sunfish usually stay in relatively shallow water, and many are still nesting along the shoreline this season. That makes them prime targets for prowling flatheads and excellent bait for summer anglers.
Only sunfish smaller than 4 inches long are allowed to be used for bait in Arkansas. These must be caught on hook and line, but you can keep and use as many sunfish of this size as you like.
If you want to exclude small flatheads from your catch and zero in on trophies, use the biggest sunfish you can — right at the 4-inch size limit. Rig the bait by hooking it behind the dorsal fin, and then cast or use a boat to place the sunfish right where you want it. For flathead fishing at night, this is usually in shallow water not far from thick woody cover, such as a log jam, a treetop, brush or other such feature.
Once you have placed your rig, then let it sit. You don’t want to move the bait too often. Trophy-class flatheads are rare creatures, even in the best waters, so it may be necessary to leave the bait in one spot for an hour or more until a hungry, cruising heavyweight can find it.
There are, of course, many other ways to catch catfish in summer. Understanding these three fishing patterns, however, and putting them into practice will usually mean the difference between getting skunked and going home with a nice mess of catfish for the dinner table. Remember to release trophy catfish to be caught another day, and keep only smaller fish (5 pounds or less) to eat.
Here’s hoping you find success the next time you go catfishing.