I want to take my boys catfishing again. The last few times have not been successful. I have a small boat and fish at Lake Bonham, Lavon, and now Bois D'Arc. What structure and depths should I be looking for right now? Any other tips would be great.

I have been catching blue cat on Lewisville in 8-11 foot of water using threadfin and the occasional gizzard shad I can get in my net. Every fish has been caught about 3 to 5 foot under the surface with only 1 or 2 caught on the bottom. Every fish when cleaned had bellies full of threadfin shad, so they are definitely feeding on shad like crazy. I was surprised to see about a 4 pound blue with about a dozen shad packed into the belly.

Also what I have been told is because of the rain, catfish are near the creeks or rivers. So target that area if possible.

If you don't own a net and not unable to obtain shad...use punch bait .or chicken livers on circle hooks dropping straight down from boat suspended. No need to cast and loose it. Circle hooks or great because they do al the work and hook the fish....you don/t have to set the hook. I keep my chicken livers on ice. Target timber you can tie off of and move after so long if not a bite. Keep the chicken liver on ice.

Your going to catch channels and few blues if any with punch bait or chicken livers Punch bait like Danny's King etc. use small treble hook. I taught myself to throw a net and game changer for me cuz I catch shad now, Can only really throw a six footer decent but all I need.
Soured deer corn works great regarding "baiting a hole". Good luck with your boys...be safe out there

Fish shallow. Cut Shad is the best bait.

Sun rise as things start to wake up. The small fish from the bank start venturing out.


Throw your line fairly close to the bank. Where the hungry cruising catfish are roaming.


Don't power cast as far as you can. There's nothing there except turtles. Everything else is doing their thing by the bank. After their belly is full. Then they'll head back into the deep.


Cut bait. Perch. And I can't explain why but catfish and large mouth bass love perch head. The most productive cut from a perch.

If you can't catch bait or want a easy homemade bait, try mixing chunks of chicken and strawberry jello in a ziplock bag.

With 80 degree water temps, the channel cats will be moving up on rocky banks to spawn. Sling you some chum out - broadcasting in a wide pattern and then put you a bobber on a 2 foot deep spread with a #6 or #8 trebble hook with danny kings or Mr Whiskers cheese punch bait.

For chum - go to feed store and get you a sack of wheat seed, fill a 5 gallon bucket half full with the seed, then fill it with water, put lid on it and let it set for 2 to 3 days.

I like to fish windy points, throw the chum out and within 15 minutes you will start catching the catfish. I'll either anchor the boat or tie up 20 feet away and cast to the shore where the chum was dispersed. let the cork just float along the windy shore and wait till it disappears, you can catch a limit in a few hours.

this works, and now is the time to do it.

In my experience , this works best early in the morning, Back off to a little deeper water later in the day,

Mo

IMO, the best bait to use is what's already in the lake. Punch bait, dip baits, etc... all of those work okay and will catch you some fish, usually channel cats. However, cut bait like shad and bluegill are my go to bait. You can catch shad fairly easily in a cast net, and you can either handfish (using light tackle) or trap the bream / bluegill. Bait fish traps are a pretty common and can be found in a lot of tackle shops for pretty cheap. Here are some bait fish trap examples (linked) that would work well. Best of luck! bait fish trap

I'll just tell ya what I'm doing right now for box fish.

M-MH graphite rod 7-7'6
1/4oz-3/8oz egg sinker, bead, barrel swivel, 18" 20lb leader, 3/0 Kahle hook. Float above the weight.
Fresh shad, as the shad spawn is in full force.
Thread a Threadfin on the hook like a worm, or cut gizzard shad.
If you're not bouncing it off rocks/rip rap, you aren't shallow enough. If you don't catch anything in 10 mins, move.

When you hook in to a 12lb Blue doing this, it's a rodeo.

I found them today in 30’ of water on Eagle Mountain. I’d caught around a hundred shad early so I came across big bait balls, anchored, chummed, and caught 11 nice ones around 3-6 pounds. Then the sandbass and yellow bass moved in and hit my bait as soon as it got to the bottom so I left. Since the lake has come up so much so fast, they’ve been hard to pattern. At least for me. The only commercial bait I’ve found that’s really good is bills cheese and brains.

Went out today. Threw back about 6 that were under 2 pounds. The rest were 2 to about 8 pounds. Caught in 8 to 10 foot of water mostly on shad and a few on cut buffalo.

I’ve got Versatrak in my gunnels so I’ve been fishing straight down about 8” off the bottom with a couple of rod holders. Chumming cut shad if it’s windy. Drifting if the wind is low. When they hit a bait off the bottom, they aren’t messing around.

Yeah that was on the tail end of that bite. Sunday, bait was tough for me. Caught several in 2' of water mid lake, 3-8lbs, on bottom out of rod holders.8:30am-10:30am.

Thank you for the great info.