This is the first I have heard about a fish finder that can distinguish cat fish from other fish. Can anyone tell me what fishfinders can do this? He mentions lowrance color, but which one(s)?

Tiny, this is great stuff. I don't know why you go to all this trouble to share you knowledge, but it's much appreciated. Hope you're doing much better and will be back on the water soon. This time of year in my part of the country, we'll often times have north wind for about 2 days and then south for about 2 days. How long does it take fish to move to the windward side when the wind changes?

Me too I just wish he would move to Texas, Ive heard them OK kittys dont taste the same lol. How many hours from Waco are you

Thanks Everyone

MtM, you have to use a rig suitable for the environment you're fishing but you're not being very specific on the conditions you're talking about. now why would that rig be gone in two minutes when other rigs you use wouldn't?

thanks everyone.

I'm not talking about drift fishing ... talking about using the wind to help locate fish aka "silent running" can be done with a trolling motor also which is the way I do this as I've got a remote controlled trolling motor that I can operate from all over the boat ... sitting in my driver's seat I watch my electronics and run my trolling motor from a little car entry sized remote. setting out lines while doing this is just drift fishing and hoping you'll run into a few fish ... you'll miss a lot of fish while drifting because some of those fish need some time to think about whether or not they're going to bite ... another deal I suggest is if a person were drift fishing and caught a few fish in one spot ... drop anchor and saturate the area with rods because there's probably a lot more fish in the area than just those couple you just caught. while drifting one should watch his electronics anyhow so that he can see if there's any fish coming up on the fish finder.

almost all the color lowrance would work for this as they all use the same colors and the color they send back is directly associated with how hard an object is ... so what you want to do is set the colorline by dropping a scaley fish of some kind below the transducer so that it picks up the fish and you do this by using a heavy weight on bottom and then you can use one of those metal stringer clips tied on the mainline above the weight about two feet ... drop the fish down below the boat and set the colorline so that it's showing all red.... all fish finder models are different though so this is why you have to do this rather than me tell you what level to set it because I've had two kinds ... one was a 102 and the other was a 334 igps unit ... the 334 worked well at 70% and the 102 worked at 55% or 60% on the colorline. then any fish you go over after that that brings up a yellow or yellow in the arch is usually a skin type fish because the yellow is the softest signal translated back tot he screen ... red is intermediate and blue/black is the hardest ... gar will send back a black or purple arch or mostly purple ... I kept a rod ready to drop fish down so that I could see how each one looked on my fish finder ... each type of fish has it's own density so it's possible to tell almost all of them apart.

right now the 510 to 520 series is the ones that took the place of the 334 series and you can use just about any unit that's higher in price than the 510's ... btw .. there may still be some 510 series on sale because they're discontinueing them. they were selling them for $350 so they may be even cheaper than that now.

I don't know if the new HD models will do the same thing but it looks like they'd be really similar to the other color models on how they translate hardness vs softness. I'll go ahead and cut n paste the old article on how to set the unit here if I can find it.

Reconstructed article: how to locate winter blues and set fish finder to tell the difference between scaley fish and catfish:

I've still got the photos of the logs online and I'll post um here so you can print them out. with a little explanation.

this first one just shows a catfish with a couple of small scaley fish back behind him. probably large shad.


on this one you can see several scaley fish that's after the balls of shad and has them busted up somewhat.


on this one there's three catfish close together within about a 30 ft path of the boat which is only about 30 ft wide and 30 ft long path of the bot movement .. knowing that there's three catfish close together like that there's usually a lot more around as there's a good number of scattered shad in the area also ... we stopped and fished here and caught 26 fish in just about 3.5 hours and moved on up the main channel and caught 4 more to limit out before 1pm that day. of the three catfish in this picture the two on the outside is between 7 to 8 lbs and the one in the middle is about 4 .. maybe 5 lbs. the way I can tell how big the fish are is by how thick they are on the fish finder ... can't go by the length of the arch because sometimes the boat is moving faster than other times so ya just can't go by that.. if the boat is moving 4mph for instance it only takes a second to go over a fish and the arch will be fairly small but if you're going 1mph the arch will be really big so unless you're some kinda expert on telling how long they are according to how fast your boat is moving then ya just can't tell ... but you can tell on the thickness of the fish at it's thickest point ... for instance ...those big yellow umbrellas we're looking for when we're trying to spot big catfish on the fish finder using the tm ... a fish that's showing about 2 ft thick will be about 20 lbs or a little bigger .. the fish isn't actually 2 ft thick but that's how thick they show up .. 3 ft thick would be about 30 to 40 lbs and you tell how thick they are by the ft lines on the right side of the fish finder but you have to have it set so that it shows the feet markers.


here's the one where shad were 14 ft thick from 24 ft down to the bottom which was 38 ft deep and it shows my net going down and then coming back up .. it took all of one throw to get enough shad to fish that day. the guy asked how I found the shad in the winter and I pointed out the weather underground site which is http://www.wunderground.com/history/airp...eq_statename=NA
and anyone can use that site by putting in a local radio weather station in their area and it'll tell them the wind direction for the last week or even a month if they want .. it's very handy to have that and that way ya don't have to pay attention to the weather for several days before you go fishin.
with a front just moved in and the wind out of the north to northwest I knew the shad were going to be on the south side mostly so I just went over to the south side and slowly went through the area and then gunned it and got on plain for about 200 yds and went slow again watching my fish finder each time along the southern side and then moved 200 to 300 yds under power again and again until I found what I was looking for which was this.


you can see that the shad are really thick here ... with 40 ft of extra handline added to my handline on my 8 ft net I throw and let the wind go ahead and push me along until the net hits bottom ... gotta have a long handline for this as you'll move 30 ft or more sideways while the net is going downward towards the shad. it's the best way I've found anyhow ... I can also catch shad with a shorter handline but I'd have to deploy my trolling motor in order to hover straight over them without spooking them from underneath the boat.

[size=4][center]Finding fish in winter[/center][/size=4]

now I'll try to reconstruct the post on how to locate big catfish in the winter ... paying attention to the wind direction is critical or you can go to the link above to weather underground and punch in a local radio show and it'll show you the weather history for the last week. anyhow ... we'll talk about wind being out of the south for several days and looking at this first map we'll try to figure out where the fish are holding and at what depth the majority of the fish are at by slowly going through the area on the north side of the lake watching our color fish finder and normally wintering fish will hold in the intermediate part of the lake ... I've checked the deepest part of the lake several times in mid winter when the water temp was 36 and lower and it's like a deadzone out there but I've always found fish holding about 45 to 50 ft just below where the shad are holding and I'll work my way across the northern part of the lake's depths until I figure out where the majority of the catfish are holding using the info above on how to tell the catfish apart from the scaley fish. you should have a good gps map loaded on your fish finder for the lake you're wanting to fish ... this is critical for fishing for wintering bluecat because without it you don't really know where to start and having a good contour map of a lake is like knowing the lake better than you ever could by fishing it for 30 years. this picture below is what I'm talking about ... notice the 50 to 60 ft depths and then abrupt changes from 45 ft to shallower real fast near the bank .. catfish will bunch up right in there on that ledge in the winter with a good south wind for several days or they may be holding just 50 to 60 ft off that ledge but this is a good place to start looking.


now in this next photo I show a path of my boat or similar to what I'd do if I found the fish holding mostly on the 50 to 60 ft slope working my way back n forth in a zigzaging motion to try to spot those big yellow umbrellas that I'm looking for once I've found one I'll go back n forth at the fish in several directions to pinpoint it's location and then i'll get off to the side ... either east or west about 20 yds or so or maybe just 10 yds and then go south about 50 ft and let out my anchor and then let the wind carry me back even or parallel with my waypoint that I marked the fish at .. more instructions under the photo.

once i've gotten positioned I'll throw out a rod with a bottom float rig if the fish is on bottom ... I never want to see these fish suspended because it's hard to get them to bite if they're suspended but if they're on bottom they'll feed readily. so if they're on bottom I'll throw out a bottom float rig baited with shad head cut fresh from live shad just past the fish about 10 yds and to the right or left of him and drag it back slowly until I think I've went past him just a little and do that again on the other side of the fish and if I want to make sure I've got good coverage on the fish I'll throw out two more rods just to the right and left of the first two just so I've got plenty of baited lines around the fish ... I don't ever remember missing a fish like this and the one trip I went trophy fishin on last year there were two big umbrellas that looks like fish near 20 lbs or better and they were close together ... just a few feet apart ... I did a drag n drop on both sides of the fish I seen and then just a few seconds went by and one of the rods took off and bent down hard ... then just a few more seconds the rod beside it started bending down and I told the young man not to get it because I think it's hung up with this line ... but then they seperated ... we caught both the fish I spoted at the same time ... one was 24 lbs and the other was 17 or 18 if I remember right.

if the wind is out of the north for several days then I'd be focusing my search on this side of the lake where the arrows on this picture is. hope this helps




When you get a wind shift for just a few days, all it does is scatter the fish somewhat so the best thing to do in this situation is to drift fish some south of where the fish are holding the most ... gotta remember that bluecat are an open water fish anyhow so where you have a lot of fish like at tawakoni or ray hubbard you can pick up a lot of fish just aimlessly drifting but when you get a handle on where most fish are holding you can be a lot more successful when drifting ... I don't like drifting because I like to locate the fish and set up on them mainly because keystone doesn't have a lot of fish in it. you can drift keystone all day and just catch two or three fish in the best case scenarios like where most of the fish are on keystone ... you drift it and it doesn't work well at all just because of the low numbers of fish in the lake. when you have fish holding on a slope between 25 to 30 ft on the north side and you get a north wind for a couple days it will probably pull them south a ways and scatter them so drifting would be the best way to catch those fish that have been scattered some. kind of got to get out there and troll around with your trolling motor some and watch your electronics to see if you can spot some of those big yellow umbrella arches and see if you can't establish a pattern on how they're holding when you have a good south wind for several days ... I'm a creature of habit though ... I'd still anchor fish those lakes down there but I'd get on the fish first ... I don't ever stop and fish unless I know there's fish in a spot ... I don't ever stop and fish just because I think there might be fish there. the remote control trolling motors are best for this as you can sit in the driver's seat and watch your electronics and work your way back n forth around those slopes and humps and won't disturb the fish any by using your trolling motor ... using your big motor will allow you to see fish but once the exhaust of the motor goes over them they'll spook and won't be there when you drop your anchor ... especially if you turn around to go back where you seen the fish ... gotta take into consideration of how blues school together also ... they're most of the time not shoulder to shoulder like other species like stripers or hybrids or sandies ... they move in groups but they're just in close proximity to one another ... so if you move over 3 or 4 fish within a 30 yd path of your boat then chances are great that you're on a big group of fish because they hunt in packs so if you are watching your electronics and you see three to four catfish in about 30 yds or so then you'd do well if you anchored right there and broadcast your rods in all directions ... 6 to 8 rods as far out as you can cast them ... cover as much water as you can when anchor fishing like this ... I can normally cast 75 yds on an average cast with my 7 and 8 ft rods using 3 to 4 oz sinkers and some casts I can punch out there to 90 yds or so so what I'm doing when I do that is covering almost 200 yds diameter of water around my boat and since bluecat are just in close proximity to one another and most likely all moving in the same direction across flats or along slopes you'll end up catching your last couple of fish on a couple of rods in the direction they're headed so it's easy to relocate them after you've not caught a fish for 15 minutes ... reel all your poles up and drop your trolling motor and head in the direction that you caught your last couple of fish and most of the time you'll relocate them heading in that direction.

when I'm in search of larger fish on keystone I'll work the areas they're holding like I mentioned before and when I spot one of those larger yellow umbrealla arches on my locator I'll triangulate over the fish from several directions so that I can pinpoint him and then set up to the side of him and drag n drop two baits ... one on both sides of him within a few feet ... I'll cast past the fish on both sides then reel slowly back just a few feet past it and then set the rod in the holder and then do it again on the other side of the fish with the other pole ... when you cast past the fish and reel it back slowly past him you're leaving a scent trail of fresh cut shad in the water that the'll pick up and track down ... since it's only a few feet they don't take long to pick it up. I've NEVER missed catching a big fish like this ... once I spot them they're as good as in the boat. only thing that could possibly allow them to not get caught is if someone in the boat starts banging something around in the boat and drives the fish off. I used this method only one time last year as my clients agreed to throw back all the fish we caught over 15 lbs ... okies don't really understand the concept of catch n release yet so this don't happen too often when my clients want to go after big fish only because a lot of them don't want to turn the big fish back ... only one did last year and we spoted 5 big arches and caught all 5 of them that day ... big for keystone is over 20 lbs ... ain't many 30 lb'rs left due to all the snaglining but we caught all 5 of them that we spoted that day and it was because of finding out where most of the fish were holding ... or knowing where they were holding ... they'd been holding on 45 to 50 ft slope for a few weeks ... but figuring out where most of the fish are holding then use your electronics and trolling motor to work your way back n forth over the areas and then pinpointing the fish ... then drag n drop baits on both sides of them and that's all it takes. pay attention to your environment ... especially the way the wind has been blowing for the last several days and then another most important thing is to forget using carolina rigs ... that's one of the worst rigs there is for using cut bait with because it lets your bait settle right down into the mud or rocks and the big fish can't get to the baited hooks ... if you use a carolina rig you also can't cast it very far or nearly as far as you can a bottom sinker rig like the ones depicted on my tips section ... the bottom float rig casted out can cast about 2 to 3 times further than a carolina rig because the sinker won't slide on the line and the bait won't helecopter nearly as bad ... that's several reasons why a person shouldn't use a carolina rig when anchor fishing for bluecat ... you fishing success will improve drastically if you won't use a carolina rig... only time I use carolina rigs is when I'm downlining for hyrbids or catfish with my sinker reeled up off bottom a ways or if I'm using it santee cooper style with a float on the leader. I'll post more info pretty soon ... I think I'm about to retire and there's some more of my more secret info that I'll post one of these days when I'm sure I'm going to retire ... my health is getting pretty bad so I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep going but we'll see.

hahaha ... You can't read a sentence unless the first letter is capitolized? Or You Find It Hard To Do So? I'd think that would be a minor issue since most catfishermen don't have a good grasp on simple homonyms, for instance where to use to, too or two, or possibly their, there and they're. That's where it makes it difficult to read a post because I bump into those incorrect usages and it makes my Ivy Leage anal-retentive genetics run amock so much that I wouldst tend to kill the next person that spoke to me. I'LL JUST USE ALL CAPS FROM NOW ON SO THAT YOU WON'T HAVE TO STRUGGLE. MUUUUAAAAAHAHAHAHA! YOU'VE CREATED ES UN MONSTERO. BAAAAAAHAHAAHAAA

You know you got the jealous people on your ars when all they got to pick at is punctuation and grammar.

thanks guys ... it's very much appreciated and don't worry bout the grammer thing as it's not hurtful or anything. someone with thin skin might be detered by it but I'm like a duck and water across the back when it comes to stuff like that and it's not so important that I need defending as I've talked with these guys. They'd just prefer that I'd spend a tiny bit of extra time and hit the shift key once in a while. I'll do it when I think about it and it's kind of on my mind now to pay attention to it. But, if I miss a capitol letter now and again I probably won't go back and edit-in the capitol letters or anything. Thanks again for the defense of my lack of capitol letter use but let's get back to fishin instead of being upset about such a minor thing. It was just a request from someone so that they can read my posts a little bit easier.

I have an HDS 5 and my shad are showing up with a lot of yellow in them, unlike the one in Tiney's post where the shad are more red, can someone help me with the settings???

Also my GPS sticks after a while and won't restart till I turn the unit off and back on, has anyone had the same problem???

Sticky this, cause this is years of wisdom . Thanks Tiny for the Thread . I hope my spelling and grammer is correct.

Tiny for the Float rig what is the order in which you put the tackle on? I looked at the examples put couldn't figure it out. Thanks in advance.

most welcome guys and thanks for the kind words.



I wrote a book once but never found a publisher for it ... I know quite a bit more about catfishing since I wrote that book though but I ain't writing another one cause it's draining to put that much work into something and then not be able to find a publisher for it. I found one guy, Amato books, that publishes trout fishing magazines and he was very interested in it and said he had to bring it before his board of directors and they decided that they didn't have the distribution for a catfish book as most of their distribution was all up northwestern states. the outfit that published keith sutton's book didn't want to publish another one because they already had a catfish book on the shelves and didn't want to publish another one because it'd compete with one they've already got in circulation. I've got quite a bit more secret information that I've not printed anywhere that could go into a book but I ain't ever going to do that again.

After seeing Salsa's video, I thought that this thread should be brought back up. This has really helped me.