What is a good catfish rig that I can use to catch channels. Since it get cold this weekend what bait should I use? Please include pictures if possible.

Google Carolina rig

One #4 treble hook,no weight ,with a ball of Stubby's bait fished one turn up from bottom

Chicken heart on a circle hook on the bottom.

I would go with this rig below #6 treble hook with a slip bobber set the hook so it is about 1-2 in off the bottom and for bait all i use is mine Chemdawgs Doughg bait if you can't get him then some CJ's from Academy or just about any punch bait sorry pics are not that great

The second Pic is of a Santee righ with Dough Bait or Punch Bait

Santee rig with salted livers.

Short video of some rigs.

that was your santaa rig it is the one that was on the rod when you gave ti to my boy. I just thought it would give him an idea of what it looked like. after i seen it online it still did not click in on how its used till i used it till i seen it. but bay all practical mean I love cork fishing for cats i just all excited when i see my bobber being played with. i hope to fisher the drifting thing out soon i got every thing set on on my bass boat my Pro Angler rods thanks you which when i compared them to the whipping stick I wish i would have bought 3 more casting I like them very much they are have a good balance and week build if i had the money i would get 3 casting rods we will see my be i can swing 2-3 of them great video by the way

part time clean your inbox out its full

in my humble oppinion the carolina rig is the world's worst catfishing rig you can use except when you're using it for a downline in deep water and cranking it up off bottom a couple of feet ... see, most catfishermen never used to take into account what the bottom is like that they're fishing and if you use a carolina rig on something like soft silt mud or a rocky bottom then you'll not catch very many fish at all.

A good "for instance" would be a day I went out on the keystone mud flats and an ole boy was out there all day and only caught 3 dinks ... I pull up within about 125 yds of him and have 10 fish in the boat in right about 45 minutes and the only thing we were doing different was he was using a carolina rig and I was using a float rig. It is supremely important to present your bait so that the fish can get to it easily .. if you're using a carolina rig and tight lining it from an anchored boat your boat will pull the rig some and the egg sinker will plow down into the mud taking the bait down into that soft silt mud also where the fish won't be able to find it. Also rocky bottoms like below dams where the bottom is lined with large limestone ... using a carolina rig will allow your bait to settle down into those tight crevasses and the only thing that can get to your bait is those little dinks so present your bait off bottom and you'll do a lot better. At the very least put a float on your hook leader and turn the carolina rig into a santee cooper rig and that's hands down a much better rig but casting distance isn't very good with either the carolina or santee rig because the egg sinker slides around when you cast them and it's important to be able to cast quite a ways when fishing the mud flats on lakes like tawakoni or ray hubbard because of the way blues are situated across the flats ... only a few fish will be caught casting close to the boat when if you're casting at least 70 yds and up to 100 yds you'll be covering a lot more water and in turn catching a lot more fish because of the way they're situated out there on those mud flats ... when blues are hunting food on the flats they'll be just in close proximity to one another and likely to be anywhere from 5 ft apart to 10 yds from each other ... it's never very often you'll find them on the flats hunkered down together except in an area that doesn't have much structure like a laydown out there by itself and that'll likely have several blues around it but if they're out hunting they'll be moving together but far apart most of the time so covering a lot of water will allow you to catch lots more fish. sinker on bottom and hook tied above it about 1.5 ft and float above that then a swivel tied to your mainline using 50 lb test to tie the hook sinker and float on with will keep the hook's dropper loop from twisting up around your sinker drop and it'll also take a lot of abuse allowing you to catch a ton of fish before having to retie the rig. Here's a pic of the rig I use almost exclusively and also one of the main reasons I catch so many fish every time I go out.

The advantage of this rig is that it gets the bait off bottom so the fish can get to it easily and it'll also cast a mile. With a regular 7.5 ft rod and abu baitcaster reel I can cast this rig over 100 yds. Not all can do that but I am able to do so as I've been in casting competitions and fished a lot with surf rods below keystone dam.

When you throw this rig out you'll want to put about two yds of slack in the line so that the float will pick the bait up off bottom ... don't worry bout strike detection because those blues will take all that slack out of the line in just a fraction of a second ... I tell my clients not to worry about anything unless it looks like something grabs hold of the end of the line and jumps off a cliff. That's when you know you got a bluecat bite... anything else like rod tip jiggle is not what we're after unless the fish comes towards the boat and I'll let you know when that's happening. Using this rig I can safely say that we put, on average, well over 100 lbs of fish in the boat over the whole time I've been guiding and one of the main reasons is because I always present the bait to the fish so that they can get to it easily ... they don't need a shovel or a pry bar to get to my baits as they would if they would try to get to a carolina rig in most situations. I guess my opinion didn't turn out all that humble after all... did it..... sorry. hehehe

Thank a ton Tiny--

Thanks Tiny, I will try it

Thanks parttime and tiny. That right there is some good info. Much appreciated!

Ok, it's cleaned up.

Great info Tiny!