Flooded out for Free Fishing Days? Try catfish
Areas below dams and spillways should be prime for catfish for June 4-5
Does your pond have the color of caramel topping? Is your favorite river to wade blown out and boiling? Is the route to your favorite spot a muddy quagmire ready to suck your vehicle into oblivion?
We’ve had plenty or rain across northeast Oklahoma the past few weeks and with Free Fishing Days upon us this weekend and no need to obtain a fishing license, you might still be strapped for a place to take a newbie or an old friend who hasn’t fished for a long time.
Here’s one suggestion: Take advantage of the conditions.
One thing that is consistent across the area is many of the dams and spillways are dumping water. Another thing that is consistent is the blue catfish and channel catfish are pushing upstream for spawning. In the right waterway, striped bass are pushing upstream as well. Other fish, such as white bass, striped bass and crappie will push up into those waters looking for wounded baitfish.
I called up Team Catfish creator and lifelong Grand Lake angler and guide Jeff Williams for a reality check on my idea and he confirmed.
“Absolutely, there should be good fishing below any Oklahoma tail race right now for catfish,” he said Wednesday.
“A lot of these catfish make a spawning run out of the reservoirs and they get stopped by the dams, so that’s why you find them concentrated below dams this time of year,” he said.
Whether you have your hands on live shad, “perch” or other baitfish, cut bait or punch baits, now is a good time to take a lawn chair, cooler and a net and tackle a likely looking catfish hole in the river. The areas below those spillways, for reasons Williams noted, just tend to up your odds a bit.
Catfish tuck themselves for breaks in the current, like any fish on an upstream trip in a river, or me when I’m traveling south on I-35 and find a space where I’m not crowded. Except catfish don’t mind close company.
“For catfish, especially if you’re looking for them off the bank, you want to find a little bit of a slack water area or a current seam or current break and get some bait into that break,” Williams said.
Many of those breaks are close to the shoreline, by the way.
“People are notorious for over-casting below a tail race,” he said. “There are a lot of fish within the first 20 feet off the bank.”
Casting a long distance from the shore only increases your odds of getting hung up. Find bigger rocks or rock structures near shore and cast 20 or 30 feet and you’ll be better off.
“It’s that old story where the boat fisherman casts as close to the shore as he can and the shore fisherman casts out as far as he can. The fish are somewhere in-between,” he said.
River catfish rigs aren’t too tricky, and Williams said the old-school three-way swivel on the end of a strong braided line with a heavy monofilament line tied to a leader and hook on one leg and short line with a weight to the bottom will do the trick.
This, from a guy who sells some pretty nifty catfish rigs and sliding weights that, I can attest, are really, really handy.
I did get him to admit his favorite weight is a 2-ounce Team Catfish snagless sinker. But where you’re fishing you might need a 10-ounce weight or even 1 pound. The weight depends on the current and your understanding of the area.
No need to worry about using a little too much weight. The fish won’t care.
“You have to imagine where a catfish feeds in the rocks and the brush and how it gets its meals,” he said. “That weight on there isn’t going to stop that fish from pulling.”