Question for cat fisherman

Switched from bass fishing to catfish and crappie about a 18 months ago, so haven’t been at catfishing long enough to know their habits. How will this cold front affect them? With cooling water, will they move deeper?

Around 50 degree and up the fish will be shallow and deep. Much under that the Shad will go deep so the fish will follow.

Thanks Tom. Appreciate the info.

Agreed, also if your targeting them this time of year look for flats adjacent to drop offs into deep water. They’ll come up on the flats on sunny days

You won’t believe how shallow blues will get and stay through the winter starting right now. Don’t be afraid to drift some wind blow mud flats in 3-5 fow

Yeah, I've seen them shallow too. My last trip I was bream fishing and something big rocked under my boat. It a big honkin' flathead that had held up right next to the bank next to a root ball I was chumming to fish for bream.

At the same time I catch them deep as well. They are moving toward their wintering holes, but down here the water doesn't really get "cold."

We been getting our bigger fish in 20-30 ft of water the last 6 weeks. I’m about to start looking even deeper. It’s good to see all you guys up shallow. More deep fish for me!!

I fish lake fork almost exclusively. The fish lay on the bottom and just nibble a bait. When you catch one it will have a coat of dirt on its belly. I cleaned 14 last week over 14 inches long. I use Stubby's cheese bait because it works the best and yes i have tried them all.

heres a tip............big blues run in pairs and the bigger one bites first

To get back to SlowDown's question, most of the time, channel cats are found both deep and shallow. In the colder water months, more are deeper, mainly because that's where the prey is.
I fish Fork too. Over the last couple of days, I have gotten them as deep as 30' and as shallow as 12', if you call that shallow. It may have just been the case of the last couple of days, but the biggest and largest numbers were caught in deeper water. More fish will move there as the water gets colder. Water is now 57-58 degrees.
Still, this time of the year, if you bait a spot consistently, they should come. Find some spots that regularly give up fish and keep baiting them. I have found 27-30 FOW in the winter to be good. I use soured maize and range cubes for chum and Stubbys Cheese bait on a #4 treble hook.
Go get em.

Are the range cubes you use soured too or are they just straight out of the feed sack?

Use range cubes straight out of the bag.

Yup, a few handfuls right out of the bag. Not too many, because you want the cats looking for more.
Tell your feed store that you are going to use them for fishing.
Sometimes they have some bags that are getting moldy and cattle won't eat them. They are still good for fishing and
you can buy them at a big discount.

So much for all the depth theories. Wife and I caught a sackful at Amistad last week in 65 to 85 feet as close as we could get to the bottom without getting hung up. We do it every year after a good strong cold front. That being said obviously most lakes in Texas are not that deep. But with winter arriving the cats are looking for the bait. Some days they will be working shallow. The biggest fish we cleaned were blues caught at 85 feet. Channels were smaller.

Just fished Eagle Mountain a few days ago. Caught the first fish in 41 FOW’ and then caught a bunch of fish in 3.

I fish a lot of afternoons/evenings. When the sun is up I drift deep this time of year.

Before sunset I will find fish shallow. Where there are no fish at 4PM could be loaded with bait and big cats at 5:30PM. Timing is key. They move.

My sonar is the decision maker. I prefer to fish shallow, but if they are not there on the sidescan I will be drifting at the depth the sonar shows the bait and big fish. Sometimes that’s 25, sometimes its the deepest water I can find in my lake.

Know where the bait is at the different times of the day and you will find the cats.

Fished the front as it hit Friday and then again this morning. We looked in 45, 35, 30 ft. We finally found massive groups of gizzards in 22 ft with lots of sandbass and catfish around them. We hung a 59, 54, 52, 50, some 40s, a few 30s, and a handful of 20s.

That sounds like an incredible day.
Well done.
Would love to see a few of those monsters.

Messed up cousin Ben real good!!

[img]https://texasfishingforum.com/forums/pics/userpics/2019/1 [img]https://texasfishingforum.com/forum...da63226_e5c8_4c52_91e9_b393370c1860.jpeg[/img]

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Thanks for the pics, seeing the fish is so much more impressive than the numbers.
Great job.

Sweet pescado pics!