After WEEKS of being skunked night after night I followed tgravley's advice and went over to Westlake Park on Lewisville. I waded out and cast into a small inlet in the cove that was shaded and had some cover, and caught this sucker on a 3/0 circle hook with raw shrimp. May not be too big but definitely a huge milestone for a greenhorn like me. Not sure what it weighed but length was 22 1/2 inches (any guesses on weight?) Was out there for 4 hours but only caught this one.

Thanks a lot for all the help and advice here... now if I can just get to the point at which I'm consistently catching several fish to put in the freezer when I go out, I'll be real happy!

nice fish.....keep em comin!

the best advice i can give you is keep casting and buy some secret 7 bait from team catfish online.

Nice fish, congrats on your catch!!

You are hooked, good luck with the filling the freezer.

Bobby Kubin, guide on Lewisville, is catching a mess on the Secret 7 in the same lake, give it a try. Watch the Team Catfish video that Bobby and Jeff just put out on this section of the forum, I am sure it will help you on Lewisville.

Hey LARS ...perfect size channel cat you got there. I really get happy with any cat over 16" myself.
Your fish at 22.5" is likely around 3.5 lbs according to a chart I have from one of my best/favored catfish books-
[The Freshwater Angler "Catching Catfish"~ The Ultimate Guide-Blues-Flatheads-Channelcats].

A lot of us here have improved in our catfishing skills from the post everyone shares here of there experience(s).

I have improved to at least a more consistent and gradually larger and larger fish myself from the tips and such Ive read and put into practice here over last 4 or 5years.

Nice catch.

CW

You need to go out and bank fish with me and damfisherman and get on a blue. That'll get you excited. The way we have been catching, that would be a small blue. But either way, I was standing where you are not too long ago. Very nice catch and it's a great milestone. Now get you a cast net and catch some fresh Shad. Secret 7 will most likely put you on some fish since team catfish really know what they are doing, but if your going for size instead of numbers then I would move up to larger hooks and fresh caught bait. Ever since I hooked up with damfisherman, my PB has just been on the rise

Nice catch! Keep it up.........

That's the perfect pan frying size.

That's a nice channel cat. Get you some Secret 7 and keep plugging away. My best advice to give you from reading your report is if you only caught 1 fish in 4 hours from the same spot you should have moved or at least changed locations of your baits more often. Once you catch the active fish out of an area the bite can die rather quickly. Also keep fresh baits in the water. Freshen your bait up every 10 minutes or so as well. The Team Catfish Video that Jeff and I did has some great information.

Thanks for all the tips y'all.

Bobby, great video of you out on Lake Lewisville! I watched this the morning before I went out and caught this guy, it was your advice that made me try wading out a bit and casting in as close as possible to that brush.

I think one reason I may have not caught anything else up in there was because I had to wade in to untangle a line and probably scared off some fish.

I had a few general questions...
1) What's the main difference in finding the catfish before and after dark? Are they going to be more concentrated in shade/shallow water in the day and then come out deeper at night?
2) How should changes in wind speed and direction effect where I try casting?

I'll prolly try some Secret 7 soon, or pick up some sureshot in town. I wish I had a little boat or canoe or something so I could be more mobile, might look into getting something like that soon.

Bull, love to go out and learn some stuff from you guys, lemme know next time y'all want some company.

DAMFISHERMAN uses one of those blow up pool boats. He paddles out with his baited hooks in a bucket and drops the line. Or has someone else go out while he watches the lines and keeps them tight. Im heading to Academy tonight to get one too so we can have more lines going out at a time. But this gives us the opportunity to bank fish and not worry about distance limitations other than how much line we have on our reels.

That's a great idea, I was thinkin' about something exactly along those lines since I can't afford a real boat right now. I was wading out up to 4 feet deep or so, walking around and casting out to different spots, but that is slow going and wears you out pretty quick. Impossible to manage more than one pole too. Where do you two go fish mainly?

Different spots on lake lewisville and lake Dallas(same lake) lately