How to catch catfish in winter. Here are 11 tips for winter catfishing. Fishing for catfish in the winter can produce some amazing fish. But fishing for catfish in the winter is different than fishing in the summer.
So here are my 11 winter catfishing tips:
1. If you don’t get a bite in 15 minutes, move your bait. Whether you recast or change spots don’t sit still for more than 15 minutes. Unlike summer, catfish tend not to travel much in winter. They find a spot and sit there. So if you have to go find the catfish, they won’t come to you. If they haven’t bit after 15 minutes, you haven’t found them yet and you need to move.
2. Look for warm waterWhen its cold, you’ll find fish when you find warm water. Warm is a relative term. Sometimes only a few degrees is all it takes. If you don’t have a fish finder, get a thermometer. If there is ice, look for that one place that hardly ever freezes over.
3. Adhesive hand warmers. They cost about $5 to $10 for a pack of 10 and they last 12 hours. Stick them to your front, your back, wherever. Stick them to your base layer and Don’t stick them directly to your skin. This is a great way to keep kids warm in cold weather.
4. My favorite bait is cut shad - if you can’t use shad try to use whatever bait fish the catfish in your area feed on. During the coldest parts of winter, many of the bait fish die. The catfish spend the winter cruising around looking for dead bait fish. Give them what they are looking for.
5. Smaller baits for channel catfish and flatheads. Big cut baits for blue catfish. I tend to find that the blue catfish are more aggressive in winter and the channel cats and flatheads are more sluggish. Channel catfish and flathead have a hard time nailing a big bait and getting it into the mouth properly so I go with about 40-50% smaller baits in the winter. Blues, don’t have that problem. Go big.
6. Everything takes more time. Plan for it. Cold weather makes getting dressed take more time, tying rigs takes more time, finding bait takes more time, everything takes more time, so plan for it.
7. On warm days, fish shallow flats next to deep water. When the sun comes out and the air temperature goes up, shallow water will heat up a lot more than deep water. So when the weather gets warm and the sun comes out shallow flats next to deep water can attract bait fish and catfish.
8. Fish the edge of melting ice. As bait fish die off during the coldest part of winter some of them get frozen in the ice. As the ice melt dead shad fall out and get gobbled up. Catfish cruise along the edge of melting ice waiting for manna from heaven, so fish there.
9. Get a cast net with a 30’ lead and learn to catch shad using only your sonar. Once you know what depth the shad are at, they become very predictable. If you want to use bait fish as bait, a cast net is an awesome tool. But in winter the bait fish often go very deep. You have to be able to find them on sonar and then get your cast net 20-30’ deep. To see how I do that check out this video.
10. Day time is better than night time. While night fishing is better in summer, in the winter, day time is best.
11. Bites can be very subtle. Using a bite alarm with a hanger is really helpful in detecting super subtle bites.
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26 июл 2024
