Food Source

Channel catfish will generally take dead bait, unlike flatheads, which prefer live bait. There are endless combination of catfish bait out there, and every catfish angler has their favorite. Try fishing frogs, clam meat animal entrails, liver, soap chunks, doughballs, limburger cheese, live and dead fish, night crawlers, hot dog slices and the list goes on.

Growth Patterns

Channel Cats can live up to 40 years, but grow slowly compared to flatheads and blues. It can take between 8 and 15 years for channel cats to reach 5 lbs.

• Flats adjacent to shallow creek arms.
• Brushy creek arms with mud banks.
• Wooded humps or fallen timber with mud bottom and banks.

• Wooded Main lake points adjacent to creeks.
• Flooded shallow flats adjacent to river channel.
• River channel.
• Timbered flats with deep water access.
• Deep main lake holes.
• Deep structure near dam.

• Deep holes.

After the spawn, Catfish are generally the most active when the water temperature is above 70deg and are very active feeders up to 85deg. In early spring and late fall when the water tempeartures are below 65 catfish are generally not very active, however they are still feeding. If you have a power plant close with cats in the cooling lake, the outlet during the winter will really concentrate the large fish.

If you want to catch good size ones dont\'t fish near the boat. Let it out a lot and drift and if you cant drift trollin motor works every time for me caught a 13lb the other day near the dam.Also one of the best baits too use is chickenliver.In the summer of last year our dad caught a 36 pound cat on the dock.