Are cats similar to black bass in the fall? As in, do they start feeding heavily on shad and moving up shallow? I'm wanting to do some catfishing with my son this fall and I'm just looking for some info. THanks in advance.

Blue cat bite will continue to get better with every drop in temperature..you will find them at all depths from 1ft to 30 ft but I usually do good in the 10-20 ft range in the fall..lake will turn over very soon and mess the bite up for a few weeks...then the monsters return and it's on. Trophy cat bite will usually really get going around Thanksgiving . It's almost go time! Good luck!!

A few degree drop in water temp and some good south winds the shallow bite will be on. Fish will stack up on wind blown points and flats

I've caught a lot of fall cats on lures while bank fishing wind-swept points for sandies.

Do they usually stack up on the windward or the leeward side of the points?

The side the waves are slamming into

Thanks for the info fellas!

In the fall you'll need to follow the bait migrations. I'll give an examples of this past weekend with a major cold front and a large amount of water coming into the lake.

Friday night we had a very large storm roll through about midnight dumping 5 inches of rain on the north end of the lake. We chose to fish midlake instead of hitting the runoff. They had opened the gates and were dumping water at the same time and the lake was not coming up. I've found the situation to not payoff to run up and fish the shallows.

We had a nasty north wind Saturday morning as the front was passing and our bait had moved from the coves out into the mainlake in 30-60ft of water. Had to get the big net out for bait.

We started out drifting in the middle of the lake where we marked scattered bait in a wide variety of depths, 20-48ft of water. The fish were scattered, but biting when we drifted baits by them. As the morning progressed our bait had moved into a mainlake creek that the wind was blowing into. We set up to drag baits on the ledges of the creek and finished filling the cooler.

For the fall bite, I'd focus on areas midlake and let the bait tell the story as to where the catfish are feeding. If the wind has blown consistently in an area and the bait is shallow, go there. If you have a wind shift, follow the bait as they migrate.

We are dragging baits with our trolling motor and planer boards at .5-1.0mph this time of year. Using planers has almost doubled our catches. It is a pain to run them, but the payoff is worth it. It just requires our customers to be a little more patient and help out a little.

Here is a small video of last weekend, Dragging for Blue Catfish

Lance can you explain the planer boards a little more? I know what planer boards are and how they work, but never used them for catfishing. What kind of rig are you using when using a planer? What depth do they work the best in? I assume you are dragging the baits on the bottom?

Pretty good video on Planer Boards.

I'm using both waterbugz and the Zakk Royce planer boards. They are used more often in the striper and walleye fishing. Look up Zakk Royce on Facebook or Youtube. He's got lots of good info out there. I started toying with this method when I ran across his stuff. I use both the Santee Rig and a 3-way rig. Both work effectively, but I prefer the 3-way a little because it seems to get hung up a little less. However, I still run both on every trip because one may work better versus the other on any given day. I wish I knew why. Give the fish what they want, not what we want to give them. Hope this helps a little.

I forgot to mention depths. They work in all depths. The shallowest I've used them so far is 6 ft, but I have a few areas that are 1-3ft flats that I plan to try them out on. I see no reason they won't be extremely effective. I've used them as deep as 70ft effectively.

Such a great community. I appreciate all the shared knowledge.

Lance, how can I get some of the Zakk Royce boards? Last I saw I believe he was using some homemade boards. Can they now be purchased somewhere?

Now all we have to do is WAIT since you Texas fellers have to produce another heat wave all week long this week all the way up here come on cooler weather were on vacation next week