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For jugline fishing I like to use a hook that I'd never use for rod&reel except in extremely fast moving water and those are large Kahle hooks .... they're a weird looking hook and a person will miss a lot of strikes on them with rod&reel but for juglines they're great ... they hook the fish really well on juglines and have kind of a cam action and will twist around and hook blues several times when they twist and thrash around ... I like to use shad heads and whole perch on juglines.

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For Flathead catfish the best hooks are probably 6/0 or 7/0 straight trotline hooks using whole live perch hooked like you'd fish with minnows ... insert hook just behind the body cavity above the spine ... they will stay alive for a long time ... well until the first flathead comes along and nails them. Suspended on juglines or limblines or even on rod&reel using weighted corks ... I use 2oz and 3oz weighted corks. The perch should be about 3.5 to 4 inches long ... crappie are great flathead bait also about the same size ... check your state fishing regulations about using them though as they're a game fish themselves. If you're going to use whole perch on juglines like 3 litre or gallon jugs use trotline hooks ... use kahle's for cut bait on juglines. I don't do any jugging or limblining unless it's with the rod&reel trolling motor boat we made. I'm a rod and reel feller and I hardly ever fish with unattended hooks. It just doesn't do it for me. Even using that boat kinda takes the sport outta fishing for me but I kinda like that. We've only used the boat about 4 or 5 times now since August 1999. My favorite way of fishing is rod in hand and messin with the regulars that come to the dam ... I also like to visit mostly as I wouldn't fish in a place that didn't have people to mess with and I wrote the book on messin with people's head's. hehehe.

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#1. Shad & Skipjack - This is kinda odd but the fish seem to prefer them fished certain ways on certain days or conditions. Sometimes in fast rushing water they're best fished whole. Sometimes they prefer just the heads. Somtimes the gizzard placed on the hook followed by a shad fillet. Somtimes just the shad fillet works. Try them all ... starting with shad heads then whole then with the gizzard or just the fillet ... keep it small when using fillets about 1/4" to 1/2" x 1" long strips. On jugs or unattended hooks it doesn't matter much how they're fished I don't think but I'd try them all different ways like bait 4 hooks with heads and then four hooks with whole shad ... the small cut bait wouldn't work well with jugs or trotlines as you'd prolly be using very large hooks. Cutting Shad Heads
#2 Grasshoppers - They're called locust in some areas .. the big yellow ones are the one's I'm talkin about. These are a seasonal bait but they're great ... it is well known that blues and channel feed off vegetation ... this is why grasshoppers are a favorite of catfish sometimes .... it's not because they feed on them all the time ... it's because of what the grasshoppers eat ... the catfish can't live off meat alone and are omnivours meaning they eat plant and animal/fish and because of this there are a lot of places they can't feed off vegetation very much and the grasshoppers fill up on plant stuff and become little bait packets we as fishermen can take advantage of and be aware that catfish won't eat grasshoppers that have eaten any old weed or grass .. they seem to bite better off of grasshoppers that are caught off alfalfa better than anything... catch grasshoppers using a flashlight at night and only use grasshoppers that are caught off of johnson grass or alfalfa hay. I don't know why but the catfish won't eat them if they've been eating certain types of weeds like broad leaf water weeds.
#4 Fresh water herring - this type bait is great cut bait ... somtimes better than shad. Same rule applies ... keep the bait small.
#5 Perch - Black or Largemouth perch work well but I prefer bluegill for cut and whole/live bait. Live perch are excellent for catching flathead also. The most important tip I can give you on fishing perch is to scale them about half way up ... this isn't my method ... Ronny "the flathead man" told me about this and I've seen him catch bigger flathead than anyone behind the dam and it makes sense as the perch will give off a lot more scent if it's been scaled.
#6 Crappie - Crappie is actually better than perch for catching flathead as this is their main food fish.
#7 Crawfish - crawdad, crawdead, craw whatever you call them they're still the same thing ... they're actually better if you eat them yourself I think but sometimes catfish like them too.
#8 Worms - not nightcrawlers ... nightcrawlers are prolly good for fishing areas that the nightcrawlers come from but not here ... they work but not as well as the native worms and it seems like the optimal time to use worms is just after a good rain when the water is rising in the rivers. Seems like the flood along with the fresh influx of bait ... mostly worms, bugs, and vegetation triggers the catfish in rivers to go into some kinda feeding frenzy. This is the only time I'd use worms is in these conditions as any other times you get too many strikes from non-target fish. I do use worms or nightcrawlers to catch perch with though.
This list will remain the same unless some bait company pays me big money to lie to you and endorse their fancy store bought bait like "Goober's Catfish Catchin Shit" but as you can see I prolly won't get any bait company praise and even face possible law suits when I tell you none of it works ... none that I've tried anyhow and I've been duped by them all.

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I've spent years fishing every day/night just about unless the weather wasn't permitting and we're talkin it had be cold or tornadic weather to keep me from fishing during 1994 to 1996. Mostly (catch & release) but if there were people there that looked like they really needed the fish I'd give them some but through the years I'd given some fish to people that I thought needed them just to find out they were selling the fish to buy drugs or alcohol so I've pretty much stopped this practice unless I knew for certain they were going to clean and cook the fish for themselves and their family. I also supply my mother and other family members with fresh fish including myself as I like nothing better than sitting down to a plate of fresh fried catfish and soppin it in ketchup, tartar sauce, or no sauce at all. My main point here is I catch a lot of fish ... most the time well over 60 to 75 lbs every time we go and this is in a short period of time also like 5 to 8 hours at most using only two rods as all I can stand due to health reasons since I broke my back in 1991 working in the oil fields plus weight and heart trouble since then. I've pretty much figured out what works and don't work and challenge anyone to catch more fish than we do using bait, tackle, or other stuff I've mentioned that don't work. You can catch farm pond fish that are being fed by the landowner with any kind of bait but for authentic lake or resevior catfish you gotta use the right kind of bait or go home empty handed.

CASTING:

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Now me being such a country hick and not getting out into the world much I thought I was the originator of this kinda long distance casting for a while but evidently I was wrong again as there's a whole organization out there that do about the same kinda casting that I do to reach distances over 200 yds fairly easily .. I found out real quick that I was not alone in what I call SWANGIN which the others call Pendulum casting which is different than what I do as I cast with a modified pendulum cast. First off you need to learn to tie the knots ... I pull all these fish in that I catch on 14 to 17 lb test line and in flood water when they have the middle slueth gate open forcing the water to swirl I use 25 lb test line. 30 is too brittle and will break if you get a fish twisting and turning on you in that strong current (8 to 12 mph rushing water). Now for the info.

#1. You spool the line on your reel 14 to 17 lb test line and then mount the reel on the rod if it's not on there already.... then you run the line out the eyes to the end and pull it down.
#2. Then tie at least 40 lb shock line to the main line using an Albright Knot. Be sure to wet the line with spit b4 you draw line tight on the knot or you'll weaken the line/knot and then hold both sides of the knot and twang it like a guitar string to remove spit. Then if you wish put a drop of super glue on the knot. That'll keep it from coming untied for sure. (superglue optional if you sinch it down good). This is also a great idea if you're fishing in rocks or brush piles and it saves mainline even if it's not small diameter, because if you tie your hook and sinker similar to the way that I do you'll be using up about 3 ft of line tieing on each hook and sinker ... whereas if you use a shock leader you most of the time just lose 4 to 5 inches of line and have the sinker and hook tied together with much larger line so if they hang up on something a lot of the time you can just set your pole down for a little while and the fish might work the sinker free. If it's tied with the same line you use for mainline they'll likely break free instantly if the fish is over 5 lbs.
#3. Reel line up until the shock line makes 3 wraps minimum on the reel whether it's a spinning rod or baitcaster it doesn't matter.
#4. Pull shock line down to first eye from the reel and cut it ... place hook on the line and slide it up and then tie sinker on the bottom.
#5. Slide hook up about two feet and tie hook loop using a Dropper Loop, again be sure to lube the line with spit or it'll burn/weaken the line. You can tie the sinker on using a Centauri Knot or similar knot.

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Hi again everyone ... I went fishing last night (Oct 14, 99) and got to the dam late and they had shut off all the running water and I remembered a method I've used that I hadn't included in the tips page due to all the still water I was fishing in.

I'll start this by telling you what made me start using this technique from a fishing trip I'd went on in 1980 at Canton Lake Dam fishing with a Johnson Century reel and regular fiberglass rod ... I was fishing on the side of the dam up on the wall behind the dam and I could see a few fish swimming around ... mostly carp and buffalo and a few small catfish ... I was casting out as far as I could and didn't have a full spool of line and it'd reach the end of the line about 40 yds out from the wall hitting the water and then drifting down out of site and I was using shad fillets and gizzards .... I casted out prolly the second time and let it drift down to where it'd hang straight below my rod tip and a little later I seen this large catfish patroling through just under the surface and was thinking I'd sure like to hook into that one and the fish was swimming along and it turned abruptly and started swimming back and forth about where my cast had entered the water like it was looking for something and it continued a little bit going here and there and then kinda started swimming towards my line going back and forth like it was still looking for something and I lost site of it and in just a few seconds WHAM! I had a fish on and I landed it pulling it up on the bank from the wall and then walked down there to where it was and it was about a 3 lb channel cat ... I stringered the fish up and caught a few more fish not paying much attention to the actions of that fish until I got to thinking about it a little on the way back out to the drilling rig where I was working north of Cleo Springs just a few miles. I'd coon hunted most of my life and those old coon hounds kinda did the exact same thing when trailing a racoon through the woods ... they'd kinda dart back and forth sniffing for the scent of a coon that they were after eventually treeing the coon if they didn't loose the scent somehow. I figured out that that fish was tasting or scenting the trail of scent that bait I'd thrown out there in the water following that trail of blood and shad slime however minute it was right to my bait producing a strike. Now when I fish still water I'll cast out and drag my bait slowly through the water leaving a trail of the bait in the still water like in a pond or something where there's not any current instead of just throwing the bait into one certain spot so that the scent will disperse into the water slowly with no current or wind to disturb the water I'd think that the scent wouldn't travel very fast in that situation. This knowledge has increased my strike ratio probably 50 to 70% I think ... sometimes if I cast up on the dam all the way against it and it sits there for a while I'll reel it in to the pylons leaving a scent trail of about 75 yds and most of the time I'd let it sit another 10 to 15 minutes at most but I'd say over half the time in that 10 to 15 minutes time frame I'd hook a fish and I'm almost certain it's due to the increased area that the bait has covered giving the fish a trail to follow instead of just a slow dispersal of the scent. Try this and let me know if you think it helped your fishing ... cast way out past where you are wanting to fish if possible and then draw the bait into you accross bottom or while it's decending ... if you're using a cork then reel it slowly back to where you think the most fish are and then let it sit there ... I'm quite certain this tactic will help you catch more fish in still non-moving water.
I'm not familiar with drift fishing but I'm assuming it's similar to what I'm talking about where you're in the boat with your bait in the water and letting the bait drag along bottom slowly with the boat. If this is the case that bait will also be leaving a scent trail for the fish to swim accross making it easier for a fish to find your bait. They could be talkin bout fishing log jams for all I know about drift fishing but I've fished like this from a boat and done fairly well in areas that didn't have too much structure to get hung on.

Real muddy water is the same like the Deep Fork river that originates right through the middle of OKC, OK and runs east through my old stomping ground around Davenport OK and Sparks OK. You fish around any good hole that has structure like log jams or something like that and you can catch a lot of catfish ... the fish out of Deep Fork are pretty decent tasting as well.

Clear water where the fish are really healthy and have an abundant food supply you will have to fish fresh bait in most cases and nothing they don't feed on naturally .... they can't go to the store and buy "Fester's Catfish GoGo-Getter" or some other stuff you'd buy at the store ... these fish will be a challenge to figure out but once you do you can catch a lot of them ... I'm not talkin about two a day or 4 or so. I'm talkin bout 12 to 15 per day easily. CATFISH FEED CONSTANTLY... I'm not saying they don't quit biting ever but I am saying they follow patterns and they are all thinking alike just like they're joined mentally ... you could be fishing and catching several fish and all of a sudden they quit like you just caught the last one ... there are two or three reasons this happens. First one is catfish school and migrate through areas feeding and they're usually holding pretty tight together within like 5 ft of one another and the school usually consists of anywhere from 5 to 50 or even more depending on the size of the empoundment you're fishing. Once the fish move through and pass on from where you're fishing you'll need to relocate or figure out where or which way they were going. They do this quite a bit in Keystone Lake ... you can be fishing catching several nice blues and then all of a sudden they're gone .... all you have to do is get back into their path ... most of the time the best bet is follow the current ... if the water level is dropping I move down stream about 100 yds ... if it's rising I'll move upstream ... I don't always catch them coming through again but sometimes I get lucky and catch three or so more fish. Fish finders are really handy in relocating the fish in this instance ... If you're fishing a smaller body of water this probably wouldn't be the case ... they may need another bait presented to them ... in a lot of cases that'll make them start biting again. If the water level drops abruptly like it does behind dams when they shut down a turbine that's generating electricity it's just like if they was feeding in flooded creeks or channels ... when the water level drops they have a natural instinct to move to deeper water ... it's hard for them to find any deeper water behind dams but none the less it will make the fish move or relocate to a different spot. This is all just general info and what I'm trying to get accross is there's a lot of variables to contend with when fishing for catfish ... you'll develope an instinct for catching them if you stay at it long enough and soak up enough of what mother nature's little creatures are telling you. Be very observant and pay attention to everything and theorize to yourself what's going on at all times even when you're catching fish there's something to learn.

Cleaning Tips

I'll make more entries later as well as more fishing pictures I don't take pictures of every catch as it would take up a considerable amount of money for film and developing. I hope to get a digital camera b4 long to take on fishing trips. Let me know if you have any tips to pass along to the readers ... you'll get credit for any tips ... I may put up a bulletin board for everyone to interact soon. GOOD FISHIN! Luck has nothing to do with it.