Hey guys I just want to pick brains here about catfishing. I'll start off by saying I'm primarily a bass fisherman and I like to crappie fish as well.I know very little about the whisker fish, other than a few rigs and the fact that big fresh castnet-caught shad are among the best if not the best bait to use. I'm just looking for any advice that might be helpful for locating and catching catfish, I'm interested in fishing for channel cats mainly in the Bosque and Brazos river. I'll be fishing from the bank and a kayak any info will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Like you for a long time all i pretty much fished for was bass. the good thing is cats like the same areas I like to fish the stumps and trees real shallow. any were from less then a foot to 6ft i really go deeper then that. Bait is a personl choice I only use My Cheeese Dough with the slip cork and do very well. if you like cut baits such and carp/buffalo Shad or perch you might want to set up a Santee rig for channels chum helps a lot for getting them to start feeding i never leave the house with out it.

I sent you PM as well

Thank you

no probel just send it to me so i can get it out for you. it will be on your door tuesday my son and are going going to wake to try out luck i have not been right s ce i gell and getting around is kind of hard for me right now but he took time off work to do so we are going to go out for a bit

All the above ++++ There is a guy ;; TINY who has lots of great info so find all his posts and you can read great info through winter..There is lots (Hope he's well(had been having health problems) haven't anything frm him lately)

http://catfishin.net/

Read everything at that website and come back to us in the spring when you finish.

Lewis I noticed your in the china spring area. That being said I can tell you that you are near a great yellow cat spot. The 185 bridge is an excellent spot for yellows using LIVE perch. You can catch those easily from your yac. Also that same bridge is good for some small channels as well. As for the blues I'm not sure where they are at yet. I got a few blue a month ago but I think they have moved from where I caught them.

When on the Brazos fishing for channel cat, I look for gravel bars with deep water close by. If you have some tree limbs or other hang ups in that area, that's a good place to start. Any type of logs laying in the water, tree limbs hanging over the water, usually hold channel cats. I usually fish that spot for about 20 minutes, if no bite, move to the next spot that looks good. Bait, good quality punch bait, shrimp, chicken livers soaked chicken hearts in garlic powder. After a rain, buy you some worms. A lot of worms get washed in the river and the cats seem to just have a field day feeding on those things.
You got a few good guys on this forum selling punch bait. They got some good products! Good luck and good fishing.

Waco28 Crappie pm sent

My favorite technique for channelcat fishing is targetting root systems and logs laying by the shore in 1 to 2 ft of water and I catch a lot of channels like that ... if I focus on them all day I'll limit out every day with as many as two clients throwing my float rigs right up next to those root ball stumps and logs as there's always nice channelcat hanging out on them at the lakes I fish. If you can find an area like that they'll wear you out. Most of the time when I'm targetting channels I'll catch a few blues too but it'll be mostly channelcat ... there's also a saying here that holds true to channelcat also ... if you're catching channelcat and you're bluecat fishing then you're fishing too shallow ... those channels that are actively feeding will always be active if they're in 1 ft deep waters ... always .. ALLLLWAAAAYYYYSSS!!! and I stress "always" .... did I say always? .. Yes I did! Present your bait to them off bottom too .. use a float rig as depicted on my web site at the web address below ... click on catfishing tips and then click on "float rig". Use fresh cut shad cut from live shad ... you can rig up a cheap system that'll keep them alive very easily and that information is on my web site as well. You can also use bluegill or green sunfish if fresh shad is difficult for you to come by .. same with keeping them alive but you don't need so much salt in the water ... maybe 1/4 the salt ... that's what I use when keeping bluegill alive and it's just for softening the water so that it aerates a lot better. Salt is necessary to keep shad alive because of the stress hormones that cause them to bleed to death internally ... salt counters that and I use 1 cup of pure salt per 10 gallons of water.

Thanks for all the information guys y'all have been very helpful!! I'll post pics when I start haulin em in. Again thanks for all the useful info!