I'm an avid fisherman and I have caught many kinds of fish but catfish are tricky to me. I have only caught 1 3lb cat in all the years that I have been fishing. Help me!

Chicken livers work. Catfish like stinky bait.

I grew up in the Ohio Valley.

Here's a truism for you. You rig for minnow, minnows, a lot of them, is what you are going to get. You rig for big ones, it takes longer, but Moby Dick is what you will eventually get. Expand your fishing to go after specific fish. Crappie, blue gill, heck even bass think light gear. Cats, go heavy, big hooks, big weights, a lot of bait.

My pals and I when I lived on the Gulf use to shark fish a lot. We'd bait that big ole hook with so much bait the hardhead cats couldn't eat it. It'd take a shark to eat that much bait. Its the same thinking with cats except on a smaller scale. Your bait may get nibbled on by little ones but it takes a big one to gulp it.

Cat's will eat about anything. Heck, one time I caught a 9lb blue on a ham and cheeze sandwich. What I can tell you is cats, like most fish, 90% of the battle is knowing where to find them. They're a little different than other fish, they like warm water and run deep. If you are catching crappie then the cats won't be biting all that well. They will move in the water depending on time of year to the deep warmer water. Like all fish though, they get too cold, they'll just linger and not eat.

There's two types of categories of cats really, channel and mud. Channels move deep and fast and are best found where they are confused, like about midway in an inlet from a river behind the sand bar. About every inlet to a cove, has openings on either end underwater and a hump/sand bar across the center underwater. When the cat comes in, he'll follow the bank till it shallows then run deep straight back out. When he reaches that sand bar, he will mill about trying to figure it out. That's where he's vulnerable. I catch my bigger blues in about 7-12ft of water behind a sand bar.

Now monster muds, I'm talking 25lbs to 60lbs are different yet. The bigger a mud gets, the more lazy he gets. So big, they take to eddies. That the swirls in a current. Eddies will drag food down from the surface. They'll lay down there sucking in stuff hardly moving. That same food will attract smaller fish which they will gobble. See a fish bit in two, Moby Dick is in that eddie.

The next hotspot is narrows. Just like the sandbar, eventually fish figure out how to get from point A to point B. A narrow between two bodies of water, concentrates them and they are vulnerable.

On a straight bank or a pond, it really is throw it out there and luck they find your bait, unless you use stink. You want a bait that will leave a trail of smell that draws the fish in. That's why old standards like chicken liver works so well on muds. Blues on the other hand prefer fresh bait like minnows. Keep in mind, a cat will follow the bank as he moves, the trick is at what depth? Sometimes that maybe right on the bank, sometimes its as far out as you can throw.

Know your underwater contour. For example, the Ohio river is quite unique. Due to all those dams and such a fast current, it drops off very quickly then is flat as hell all the way across to the other bank. On a straight bank, the cats will be running pretty darn close in. Because of that current, there's many eddies near the banks and almost for sure a monster under everyone of them. Also because of that current, deep coves won't have a sand bar but shallow ones do. On the Ohio, those narrows/sand bars are usually up creeks a good distance from the entrance. That too is a result of that strong current. Every body of water is going to be a little different.

What really helps is having a boat and using a good fish finder that shows you bottom contour. That makes this learning curve a lot faster. That's especially true for predicting the seasonal habits.

Last but not least is some general advice. The more you fish, the more you will catch. There's a learning curve. When you get to the point just by how your pole is moving or how it feels you can pretty much guess what type of fish and how big, you'll be slaying them. Setting that hook is half the battle.

Tj

TJs post reminded me of a Tarpon/Shark trip. We were getting plagued by large Sail Cats, I caught one about 4 lbs and cut his head off just behind his pectorals took his top gaff off and cut off his tail rigged him up on a very large circle hook and set him in the current. 30 minutes later my reel started clacking out line very very fast. I went to free spool and thumbed the spool enough to stop a back lash, the fish ran off 100 yards of line and then paused and changed directions. I reeled down to tension and then put a slow, long sweep in the rod to pull the circle into the corner of its mouth. The fish erupted in a long powerful run. I applied max drag and both thumbs, turned the fish and it kicked it into hyper drive straight back at me. This continued for about 15 minutes and finally I had the beast at the side of the boat. It was the biggest sail cat I have ever seen, in disgust I swung him up onto the boat at which point he vomited out the whole bait with the hook point turned back and buried into the bait. He was not even hooked for the whole fight. No idea what it weighed but it was longer than my arm and the 4lb cat easily went down its gullet.

I always bring several types of bait. Worms, Liver and cut/live bait and generally some kind of stinkbait whether it is dough or dip.
I catch most of my fish in the late spring/early summer when the water warms up enough for them to start spawning, that will depend on where you are though but you can look it up. The location tips above are all pretty good ones. I wouldnt worry about investing the money in heavy braids, winch sized reels and wallet size hooks till you find them in your area and can justify the need for it all. Don't be afraid to move, alot, until you find out where they are. Dont worry about casting a mile out from the bank and make notes/pay attention to what you catch, when, where and what the water temp and weather are so you can see patterns etc.

a cheap 5 dollar bag of frozen shrimp from walmart has been good for me lately. throw some garlic or some kind of strawberry flavoring in the bag the night before.

OP, are you fishing rivers or lakes/ponds?

Last year, I started set-lining in the Missouri river. I finally found a good spot off of a rocky point to set my line in waste deep water. I tried all kinds of baits but what worked the best for me was large night crawlers. I would set my hooks in the evening and then go back in the morning and would have a nice stringer full of 3ish pounder cats, some bigger ones, and occasional walleyes. No more wasting countless hours trying to catch these elusive fish from shore. I love to eat catfish and have found the perfect method. SD changed the law for this year so a guy can set line all year long whereas last year their was a season from May to Oct. As soon as the ice melts from my favorite spot then I am starting in again. My freezer still has frozen fillets and lots of deer meat. Fish while you sleep. Can't get any better than that. Here are some pics. Just to give you a scale I am 6' 11" - 300 plus and those are size 18 shoes.

OK OP if your on a river i find that the deepest hole you can find is a good place to start for cats. And its usually a night time affiare. you need heavy sinkers to get the bait on the bottom. what i do is i take my sinker i put in on the line just so it moves freely i then tie a barrel swivel with about 12-18 inches of line on it (i put a split shot on the backside of that barrel swivel to keep the sinker on) tie one one of these i dip that in this stuff called stink bait(use a stick you dont want that on your hands) toss that out into the water and wait. usually beer and friends help the whole process out a lot.

My best catfish bait is medium sized raw shrimp and also raw bacon that has been microwaved for one minute to get the juices flowing, for both bullheads and channel cats. I have used cut bait, chicken livers, etc but raw shrimp and raw bacon have produced consistently larger and more catfish than any other bait I have tried.

couldn't agree more. I've used anything from nightcrawlers, minnows, grasshoppers, liver, shrimp, stink bait, and other stuff. I remember during the summer time getting an empty milk jug and tossing 10 or 15 grasshoppers in there. They make for good bait.

6 lb catfish surprise Last couple of outings I have been catching 5 and 6 lbs cats while bream fishing in 2-3 ft of water on crickets. Always a shock when you set the hook and realize that ain't no bream on that small light weight hook!

Large flatheads like live bait. A live perch (where legal) are lethal for the 50+ lbers