Great info guys! I appreciate it.

Buying a new fishing pole - $75.00. Getting a new reel for the pole - $80.00. Learning catfishing from Tiny - PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for all the information tiny. I due have another question. Mainly been fishing Eagle Mountain. We normally fish were we have caught fish before and due work with the wind. I have read your info in the past about finding fish and bait on the graph,but we never seem to mark alot of fish. Usually just drift with cut shad. what should we be looking for on the graph? Also,I have heard that EM is one of the harder lakes around me to fish because of lack of depth and structure. Love to fish and trying to get better results every trip. I really appreciate this forum and ALL the guys who share information. I'm not trying to get seceret spots or hound people-just trying to cut down on wasted water time. Thanks!

Amen. Tiny is da man when it comes to catfishing.
Welcome to the TFF StevenM.

Whats up with this Tiny. http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbt...ior#Post1915422[/url] You said the Threadfins did fine up there and there was no way our threadfins would die in low 40 degree temps on Lake Texoma. You said they did fine on Keystone in the cold and now you are telling me you have not seen a threadfin in 3 years? Are you sure you can tell the difference between a threadfin and a small gizzard?

Man that thread even had Jerry in there on it. Good shad info in that one.

steve barnes, lake freezing over is a whole different deal than 40 degree water. that and it had frozen over for a couple of weeks. I really don't know why you're being an arse but that's your right to be I suppose. I was just stating an oppinion and I still don't think threadfin will start to die off at 45 degrees because our water gets down to a lot colder than that and they don't die off. seems like someone said you're a jugline guide and you do it below the dam at texoma and if you're refering to shad dieing that get sucked in the turbines while you're down there in the winter then that's not because of the temp ... it's because of them being down deep and in 40 ft or deeper water and then instantly getting flushed into 10 ft deep they get the bends due to the rapid pressure change ... I can't say for sure why your texoma shad die but I really doubt it's because the water temp is 45 degrees. I also don't lose any shad when my bait tank water is below 45 degrees ... it certainly doesn't have to be 60 or 70 degrees ... maybe you need to come up to keystone so I can give you a few lessons on how to keep shad alive. hahaha. The shad die-off we had in january wasn't three years ago .. it was this last january. I also am not sure if it's been three years since I seen a threadfin shad but I certainly haven't seen any since the last lake freeze we had. but I know for sure that they don't die in 45 degree water cause if they did there wouldn't be any shad at all in oklahoma ... I'll go look at my pics page and see when it was when I caught my last threadfin shad on keystone as I remember the trip. we stopped at keystone to get shad to head over to choteau bend to a big brothers event and I remember catching threadfin at the new mannford ramp on keystone but haven't caught any since then.

it was may 6, 2006 and we were talking about that shad die off you were talking about Jan 1, 2008 which is about one and a half years so it wasn't that long then and now it's nov of 2009 so that's 2 years 6 months instead of 3 years like I'd said earlier in this thread. evidently you took offense to me disagreeing with your highness because if you remembered that and went through the trouble of looking back through the old posts so that you could throw it up in my face as to what I said then you musta became obsessed with me disagreeing with you. I don't know if there's any threadfin in keystone for sure or not because all of them I've caught have been over around the salt creek area as the water is a lot clearer over there and I guess they like the clearer water instead of the muddy waters coming down the arkansas and cimarron river and I think I've went over there to catch shad maybe 3 or 4 times since may 6 of 2006 as I spend most of my time on further up the lake, up in the muddy water. I think it's been about 5 or 6 years since I've caught any threadfin on the arkansas side and that was only a few times. anyhow, I still think .... no I KNOW you're wrong about shad dying because the water temp is 45 degrees because I've dipped water out of the lake and filled my bait tank when some of the lake has been frozen over and they survived just fine all day long.

I'm wondering if those shad you seen that died came through the dam... did they?

Steve M, the best thing I could probably say is pay attention to the environment. watch for diving gulls or maybe where pelicans are feeding and head over there and when you get close drop the trolling motor and run through there silently watching your fish finder ... if the water is at least 10 ft deep you'll be able to see a path of about 8 ft below the transducer or maybe 7 ft but that's enough ... if you go through there where the birds were diving and you see busted up shad ... anchor off and broadcast your rods in all directions as far out as possible ... lots of people make the mistake of fishing those shallow areas by just throwing out 50 ft from the boat but you want to cover as much water as possible when fishing shallow areas like ... try to get 8 rods out in all directions and be sure to keep those baits up off bottom ... can't throw a carolina or santee cooper rig as far as you need to ... use at least a 3 oz weight with the float rig depicted on my site with fresh cut shad and try to throw them rascals at least 70 yds from the boat in all directions because bluecat are an open water fish ... they hunt together on those flats and they're liable to be in a group of 50 to 100 fish all moving together but just in close proximity to one another ... they don't swim shoulder to shoulder like scaley fish do so when you see busted up shad you want to cover as much water as possible from you anchored boat ... once you get your rods broadcasted then if you haven't caught anything in 15 to 20 minutes then you need to go ahead and move and try to locate some fish ... if you catch a few fish and they're in a certain direction ... say if they've bitten the front two rods on the right side of the boat and haven't bitten since then that's the direction you need to move ... if you casted out 70 yds and you're moving in that direction go about 150 yds in that direction and cast your rods out again. this is on of the methods I use a lot when fishing these shallow flats. watch the surface of the water while you're waiting on fish to bite too ... if you're fishing some 3 ft flats and the fish are active on those flats chasing shad and what not you'll be able to see fish chasing shad if you're paying attention ... don't pay attention to the ones that jump out of the water cause those are usuall carp or buffalo but those ones that you see blow up out there are most likely bluecat that have attacked a shad ... if you see two or three of those blow ups then that's a good place to move. this is the kinda stuff that I'm talking about when I say "pay attention to the environment" cause it'll pay off bigtime.

also if you're using your electronics to locate fish I've written a few things already on other threads that you should be able to find pretty easily but just remember that when you're looking for blues out in open, shallow water they'll just be in close proximity to one another and if you see 3 fish in 30 yds of boat travel then that's most likely a good place to stop and fish ... if you've got a color lowrance fish finder you can also tell if the fish are catfish by setting it with a scaley fish like I've written on another previous thread ... if you set the colorline of your unit by dropping a fish down so your transducer will pick it up and adjust your colorline to show the scaley fish as all red then any fish you go over that has a lot of yellow in the arch will be a skin fish. remember that though ... 3 fish in about 25 to 30 yds of boat travel in 10 ft of water ... if it's about 30 ft deep you'll want to see maybe 5 or so fish in 30 yds of boat travel because in deeper water your transducer will be covering more bottom area ... I also look for catfish that are close to bottom ... I don't pay too much attention to suspended fish ... that's how we caught that oologah lake record a few weeks ago ... I was moving up the main channel of the lake and seen several big fish suspended and kept going and seen another one about the same size as the suspended fish but it was on bottom. I pulled my boat up about 30 yds and dropped anchor and let the wind pull me back towards the fish until I was about 10 to 15 ft in front of it and then I threw out two large live shad in front of it and about 3 minutes later that 46 lb flathead took off with one of those shad. easy huh!

another point I'll mention when you're reading your fish finder is you go by the thickness of the arch when trying to figure out how big a fish is ... never by the length of the arch because if hte fish is swimming the same direction your boat is traveling it'll be a lot longer but they can't get fatter or they can be turned sideways to your boat and look smaller if you go by the length of the arch so go by the thickness of the arch ... you can tell how thick they are by the 1 ft hashmarks on your fish finder or if it's showing 5 ft intervals then you see a fish that's taking up 1/3rd of the 5 ft intervals then that's a pretty big fish. you also have to take into account the depth at which your fish finder is on at the time ... if you've got it set to autodepth like it changes the max depth automatically then the deeper it is the smaller the arches will be ... say if your fish finder is showing 20 ft and you see an arch about 1/4 inch thick then that fish isn't very big because you're just seeing 20 ft in your 3 or 4 inch screen and that 1/4 inch fish is taking up less than a foot compared to the hash marks but if your fish finder is autodepth to 80 ft and you're in 60 ft deep water then a 1/4 inch arch is a huge fish because what you're doing is craming 80 ft of info in your 4 inch screen and that 1/4 inch arch represents about 2.5 to 3 ft thick and if you see this fish right on bottom then pull up a ways into the wind or up current and drop anchor and let out enough rope that you can get just in front of the fish and throw out a couple of rods with live shad on both sides of the boat almost straight down and then two with cut bait just outside of the two you threw out with live baits and chances are you'll reel in a hawg. ... always try to broadcast your bait up current from the fish so that the current will send the scent of your bait back towards the fish ... if there's no current then broadcast several baits all around that fish.

let me know if you have any other questions as I've forgotten what we was talking about now so I'll quit here. hahaha.

I don't have time to read all that but from what I scanned over you don't know much about threadfin shad.

Are ya'll paying attention!?!??!?!?! Someone (Tiny) is offering information based on YEARS of experience! How about Ya'll go out there and spend crazy time on the water and then divulge what you have found for everyone to get the easy way out? At that point, THEN you come on to this forum and talk smack about how someone can be wrong. I've met many great people that just want to try their best to put people on catfish....once in awhile, we got those people that believe they can put themselves on a pedestal by showing up someone. That does NOT note the spirit of this forum in any way shape or form. If you have an ego and want to slam someone for their fishing methods, you can just move on. This forum has been about people enjoying the feeling of catching and sharing their expreriences with others. Fish have fins and they move. We all get skunked. We can have some great days. SHARE your good days and all the tips that have helped you have a great day on the lake. What do you gain by slamming someone that just wants to share their experience? In my honest oppinion, slamming someone just makes you look like a jerk and keeps you from the true values of being a true fisherman and sharing in your experience. If you have that attitude, you don't belong here. You belong in the first grade. Put your ego's in check. CONTRIBUTE.....don't be a loser and slam someone else for your own personal gain because we are a lot smarter than you give us credit for!! Thank you, Tiny for input and your patience for the loser freaks that HAVE to feed their ego's by slamming you. Keep this forum advantageous to all. Ignore the slams from the egocentric, Holier than though, folks that can't appreciate somoeone else's experience. Bravo to Tiny, and BOOOO to those of you that don't applaude someone for his contributions.

+1 Looks like to me some guides services really do not know that much about fishing after all and just are in it to take peoples money.

I would hardly call Steve Barnes a loser with an ego. He is one of the best catfisherman in the state. What makes you any better for slamming Steve? Take your own advice, if you dont like whats posted, move on. You arent anyone to be calling out either one of these catfishing greats.

+1 for tiny anybody that has spent as much time as he has writing about these slimey critters that we all love has got my vote i learn something everytime i read one of his posts. wish he would come down here and teach me to read my fishfinder on lewisville, maybe i could figure them out then

If all fishing guides were as good as Tiny, then maybe they should post a 50# guarantee like Tiny does. That to me puts him out the in forefront of all catfishing guides. I have been following Tiny's web site for over 5 years and he is the one of the most experienced catfishermen around. IMO.

They are both really good guides and great sportsmen. I think that they either don't like each other too much, or they are really good buddies who just enjoy giving each other a hard time.

"They are both really good guides and great sportsmen" +1

Barnes posts some wheels off things on here that leaves me scratching my head sometimes, but those of you that think he doesn't have as much experience in catfishing might want to check out some of the pics on his site.

http://www.txfishingguide.com/trophy-catfish-pictures-page.htm

I know he used to have pages and pages and pages of big cats at one time on there going back to the 90's and pretty much was one of the first trophy catfisherman around here. I'm just hoping somewhere else in this thread Barnes or tiny will cough up some more good info to help us all out and pull this one out of the ditch

I've learned quite a bit from both of these guys and respect what they have to say regardless.

It is not very professional when one guide trys to make another guide look like he does not know what he is talking about in a forum. You are going to have this type of disagreement among fellow fishermen when this happens.

where did you see any indication that tiny don't like the cap'n? ... you didn't see any ... but you did see the cap'n makin' snart a$$ remarks about tiny ... unless i missed sumpin, where did tiny give the cap'n a hard time?

no doubt the cap'n catches lotsa big fish BUT he really doesn't contribute squat to this forum in the way of good usable information to help out other fishermen ... in that regard he can't hold a candle for tiny to see how to go by

no slam just a FACT

+1, I don't care how good of a fisherman he is, he shows no class in this thread....

Why can't we all just get along? LOL

Evidently some people aren't reading all that well.....

Capt. Steve simply pointed out that in one thread Tiny mentions not seeing a Threadfin in 3 years because they all died off but then in another thread talks about how they don't die off and there are a bunch of threadfin in his lake...which is it?

The amount of words in a post has no correlation with the amount of information provided.

I've seen numerous posts by Capt. Steve with updated reports ON A LOCAL lake that could directly help members of this forum.

Free tips and advice are exactly that....free. Usually you pay for what you get and get what you pay for....in one way or another.

Both guides are accomplished fisherman and run successful charters. Lets leave it at that. There are different ways to skin a cat. All fish including game and nongame have some basic partterns no matter where they are located, but individual waters do vary same as tatics imployed to catch them (game and nongame). Everyone has an opinion and their personal techniques. This is a place to share them and or learn new ones not to bash or start anything. This is starting to become childish men.

Thanks Tiny, for the info. I have catfished a lot but never with any science to it. I normally fish from the bank so I found a spot that looked good or a spot that had held some fish in the past and set the poles out. I have really never fished from a boat so all this info is very useful. I am just now moving to TX around the FT Hood area, I am in the Army and I hear lake Belton is a good place to fish and it is a good size lake, so I will need to be able to fish from a boat. Thanks again

you my friend are the one not reading very well ... cuz these post by the cap'n that you speak of just ain't there