There are several different kinds of catfish in the United States and there are at least a hundred different ways you can go catfish fishing. Fishing for catfish can be quite addicting since when you land one they will tend to put up quite a fight. However, trying to catch one of these elusive fish can also be quite frustrating sometimes as well, as it seems that there are times when they just don’t want to bite.
Catfish have been caught on a wide variety of bait, from expensive, store-bought lures to cheap, homemade items found in just about every kitchen. Catfish anglers have sworn by such catfish bait as cut up hotdogs, chicken gizzards, balls of bread dough, live bait, shrimp, night crawlers (worms), live gold fish, chicken, pork and cow livers, rancid fish parts such as crappie heads, honey ham, bologna, stink bait, hog jowls, bacon, crickets, cat and dog food, chicken breast, parmesan cheese, and even doughnuts. While fishermen will swear on the baits they use, it seems that one thing is consistent: catfish are opportunistic feeders known to bite just about anything that is edible and some things that aren’t.
Catfish have a well-developed sense of smell and are, for the most part, omnivorous which means that they will eat a wide variety of foods. As seen by the popularity of store-bought items such as “stink bait” and the insistence of catfish fishermen on fishing with rotten meats and tainted foods, catfish tend to favor odoriferous bait. In order to properly determine the type of bait to use, a fisherman can take the body size of the catfish into consideration. Smaller catfish, which are under 14 inches or so, tend to eat small organisms that dwell on the bottom such as insect larvae and other invertebrates. Once they are larger, catfish will concentrate more on dead or alive fish. The changing seasons also determine a catfish’s diet. Winter months tend to be good to catfish, as they will feed on the corpses of other fish that have perished due to cold weather. During the warmer months the catfish will concentrate on frogs, worms, insects, algae, and crayfish.
Catfish fishermen can find success from the bank, by wading through the water, and from a boat in most places, as catfish prefer to lurk in dense coverage most of the time foraging for food. Many catfish fishermen prefer to fish in streams but will not hesitate to fish a river for the promise of larger fish. The largest catfish are typically caught in lakes, however. Lake catfish are never evenly dispersed but reside in pockets of optimum temperature, food concentration and adequate cover from predators. This is the reason that two fishermen can go out on the same lake and one can easily catch more than the limit while the other can have nothing that resembles a bite all day.
In order to catch the most catfish, it’s imperative to find the pockets that they tend to hide in. These pockets should change throughout the year, but many fishermen have found that the catfish will return to specific areas during the same months of the year. Catfish can also be caught year-round and the winter months are more opportune times to use smellier baits since the catfish will be on the look out for dying fish corpses anyway. This may be more of a truth in the northern US than the South, however.