Posted By: Chris Richardson
Monster day on Lake Livingston 12 fish over 20# - 12/29/17 05:27 PM
Lake Livingston is my home lake and I've always known it was full of catfish. We jug fished a lot with my grandpa when I was little and have an amazing bulkhead bite that takes place during the shad spawn, but I've never tried to target big blue cats during the winter. My brother Michael and I catch fish on Livingston year around with our guide service Lake Livingston Adventures and we spend a lot of time catching big hybrids on Lake Conroe during the winter months, but this year we decided to see what all this winter time trophy blue cat fishing is all about. It just looked like too much fun to pass up!
I read all about drifting for big blues and built some planer boards and snag resistant sinkers. We booked a trip with Andrew Taylor one of the big blue masters on Tawakoni and learned some very valuable details to fine tune our leader length, speed, and distance of line out the back. Shout out to Andrew, as many of you know he is a great fisherman and even better guy that I highly recommend. After that Michael and I talked about the gizzard shad population and the transitions they make up and down the lake according to water temp and time of year. We picked out an area to focus on and put a game plan together. Michael went out twice scouting and caught several big ones on three consecutive trips so we knew we had a pattern that could be repeated. We've always had more success spending more time looking for the right pattern and less time just guessing even if it means lines are in the water for a shorter period of time. So with that in mind my uncle Jim and I went on the hunt freezing cold but excited none the less (Michael was guiding on Conroe and caught a 7 man limit of hybrids that day!). Jim and I found a flat that was loaded with big baitfish and what the graph showed to be big blue catfish as well. We set up drift and commenced to catch 12 blues over 20 pounds ending the day with a triple! I think several were over thirty but didn't have a scale in the boat to verify. Needless to say I am HOOKED and will be attempting to further master this technique and add it to our guide service offering. This stuff is fun and Lake Livingston is loaded! All fish released fat an sassy to make someone else's day.
I read all about drifting for big blues and built some planer boards and snag resistant sinkers. We booked a trip with Andrew Taylor one of the big blue masters on Tawakoni and learned some very valuable details to fine tune our leader length, speed, and distance of line out the back. Shout out to Andrew, as many of you know he is a great fisherman and even better guy that I highly recommend. After that Michael and I talked about the gizzard shad population and the transitions they make up and down the lake according to water temp and time of year. We picked out an area to focus on and put a game plan together. Michael went out twice scouting and caught several big ones on three consecutive trips so we knew we had a pattern that could be repeated. We've always had more success spending more time looking for the right pattern and less time just guessing even if it means lines are in the water for a shorter period of time. So with that in mind my uncle Jim and I went on the hunt freezing cold but excited none the less (Michael was guiding on Conroe and caught a 7 man limit of hybrids that day!). Jim and I found a flat that was loaded with big baitfish and what the graph showed to be big blue catfish as well. We set up drift and commenced to catch 12 blues over 20 pounds ending the day with a triple! I think several were over thirty but didn't have a scale in the boat to verify. Needless to say I am HOOKED and will be attempting to further master this technique and add it to our guide service offering. This stuff is fun and Lake Livingston is loaded! All fish released fat an sassy to make someone else's day.