Winter Catfish Are a Great Catch
Some folks think that when the water temperature drops into the 50's that the  big catfish disappear for the season. My friend Mac Byrum just proved that to be wrong. Mac was on an early morning Sunday trip by himself. The weather was cold approaching 32 degrees with a slight breeze. Mac saw his closest planer board take a dip and the rod indicated a hard hit. Mac grabbed the rod and started the retrieve and he new instinctively that he had a big fish. The rod loaded heavily, then there was nothing, the big cat was gone. Mac didn't even have a chance to take in the line to check it when his longest line planer board dipped and the rod nearly hit the water. Putting down the first rod Mac grabbed this rod and he knew that he was about to have the fight of his life. The fish headed for the bottom but Mac's years of experience and properly set drag paid off. After a long fight, he got this 50 pound blue catfish into the boat. The fish was 49 inched long with a girth of about 30 inches. Mac rushed to a friends house to weigh the fish and take a photo before returning it to the lake. Mac told me that he saw the image of this fish on his sonar before it hit the garlic flavored chicken bait that he was using. The image was exactly like the image of a big cat that we had included in our recent book :The Catfish Hunters", looked like a log sitting about 1 foot from the bottom. Don't believe those stories about cold water catfish hiding from the cold.

Vertical Jigging Working Well

There are so many bait fish in the lake right now that trolling live bait, although still effective, is giving way to vertical jigging. The bass are so used to seeing bait fish swimming horizontally, that they seem to go crazy when they see a jig being moved up and down in the water column. using a 3/4 ounce chartreuse jig, is catching more fish than the live bait.Of course you will need a sonar to find the fish unless the lake is calm and the bait fish are visible on the surface. if you find the bass, they will often hit the jig on the first drop. Using a light rod and reel, this is a very exciting way to catch a lot of fish in a short time. I have found that it is not uncommon to catch 10 bass in an hour of fishing.