Pretty new to fishing. Going to a pay lake today. Is it better to carolina rig or drop shot? I heard with drop shot you have better bite detection and doesn't snag as easily. With cat fish being bottom feeders, would they still go for the bait being about a foot off the bottom?

Catfish you don't need quick strike detection. Catfish are scavengers not sight feeders, they use odors/smell to locate food and have poor eye sight.

Carolina rig is a lake rig commonly used for bank fishing. You cast out, put the rod/reel in a holder, take up most of the slack line and watch the rod tip to start bouncing indicating a catfish has started to eat your bait. If you don't see the strike the catfish will continue eating until it hooks itself.

Tom

 

2 minutes ago, WRB said:

Catfish you don't need quick strike detection. Catfish are scavengers not sight feeders, they use odors/smell to locate food and have poor eye sight.

Carolina rig is a lake rig commonly used for bank fishing. You cast out, put the rod/reel in a holder, take up most of the slack line and watch the rod tip to start bouncing indicating a catfish has started to eat your bait. If you don't see the strike the catfish will continue eating until it hooks itself.

Tom

 

Is it better to just put it in a rod holder and wait? Because what I would do is cast and slowly reel in over and over again

It takes time for catfish to locate your bait unless it lands next to them. Moving the bait makes it difficult for a catfish to locate where the bait is....poor eye sight.

Tom

4 minutes ago, WRB said:

It takes time for catfish to locate your bait unless it lands next to them. Moving the bait makes it difficult for a catfish to locate where the bait is....poor eye sight.

Tom

So is it more efficient to make multiple casts in hopes that it lands next to them or wait for them to find it?  Or a little bit of both?

I just throw it out and wait.   I reel it in after 30 min or so to check the bait and might throw it in another location if the bait wasn’t taken.   

6 minutes ago, jbrew73 said:

I just throw it out and wait.   I reel it in after 30 min or so to check the bait and might throw it in another location if the bait wasn’t taken.   

I usually check after 90min to two hours if there is no bite. sometimes go to slip and get the cat in morning.

What about using fluorocarbon as a lead? Is it necessary? I have braid and use fluorocarbon lead but I guess since catfish have bad eyesight it's not necessary?

Catfish can't see your line and don't care if the do. Have you ever heard of trotlines used for commercial catfishing? Trotline is a rope or heavy cord with hooks tied on about 2' apart several hundred feet long weighted down on the bottom.

Tom

PS, surprised the mods haven't moved this thread.

You can move the bait like you said , Ive done it before but its usually better to leave it set . I like the hook on bottom . But yeah,  I use to let the wind blow my boat across  flats while  dragging  a Caorlina rig baited with shad until I caught a catfish . When the fish hooked up  I'd quickly    toss  a buoy to mark the spot then anchor there  and tight line .

Many years ago when I fished for channel cats, we'd drop a weighted net bag of dry dog food with floating milk jug at a chosen location.

 

We'd then float off and bass fish, come back at dusk with shrimp and chicken liver and have a blast. 

 

Always used Carolina rig. 

Pay lake, no current? Depends on bait, if big chunk cut bait, I will do no weight on mono line or braid with mono leader. I don’t want my line lay flat on bottom (no FC) otherwise as small weight as possible Carolina rig, shrimp, hotdog and my favorite recipe cut pieces bacon in cool-aid. It I fish during the day, I would move my bait every 20-30mins (to clear the weight and bait from sinking in mud and searching for hungry catfish. In evening to night I would leave the bait sit longer.

 

 

As it happened, my first exposure to fishing was catfish on the banks of the Passaic River, NJ (late 1940s).

I can still see the monopod rod holders my dad fashioned from tree branches, and will always

remember the smell of those black muddy banks. Though catfish occasionally outdo themselves,

they're basically scavengers rather than gamefish.

This is a great thread, but would probably get better mileage in the "Other Fish Species" forum.

 

Roger

 

I have caught a lot of channel cats on bass lures , so a chunk of bait moved slowly along the bottom will work .

 

  One day I anchored above a dike on the Mississippi river and cast out a shallow diving Manns Razorback pig .I got it right over the dike and held it still  , allowing  the current do the work . It just sat there and wiggled in place right on top of the rocks.I caught two nice channel cats on it .

When i go catfishing I use three different presentations regardless of the bait I'm using. Heavy carolina rig, santee Cooper rig, and a circle hook under a bobber. I cast to generally the same area and have three areas of the water column covered. 

 

Catfish dont use lateral lines like bass, to detect vibration and movement. They go on sense of smell mostly. But they dont just bottom feed. A flathead catfish is an apex predator and prefers live bait. Which swims and squirms on the hook. So they do sense movement better than channels and blues. Channels will eat just about everything. 

 

Cast and wait unless you know there are flathead there and you're targeting them. Then you can use a live bluegill, cut the tail fun off and hook it in the tail end and slowly drag it. 

I haven't targeted catfish intentionally for decades. We have Channel and Blue catfish, channel being predominate species. Both channel and blues will strike moving lures like crankbaits, jigs, soft plastics and structure spoons because I have caught then accidentally on all of those over the years.

For me catfish bait is fresh mackerel on a like rig when I wanted to catch them.

My son caught a lake record* Channel catfish using a 3" reaper when he was 10.

Tom

* 26 lbs Castiac lagoon.

 

Catfish are not strictly bottom feeders and not at all scavengers. They're very active, apex predators not at all unlike bass. It's not an accident when one catches a crankbait, jig, spinnerbait, or topwater, they were actively hunting it down.

 

The most successful catfishermen aren't sedentary either, they'll set up on a spot for 10 minutes, 30 minutes tops on a prime area, before moving on. If fish are around they will find your bait. Fishing a dropshot rig for catfish is more of a dock fishing or boat fishing method. Catfish's mouths are very sensitive and the feeling of dragging a sinker along behind them can cause them to spit your bait out. Personally, if I'm on a the shore I'd go with a C-rig, bobber rig, or cast weightless chunks of cutbait and fish them like you would a plastic worm for bass (something I call bass fishing for catfish).

1 hour ago, WRB said:

For me catfish bait is fresh mackerel on a like rig when I wanted to catch them.

My son caught a lake record* Channel catfish using a 3" reaper when he was 10.

Tom

* 26 lbs Castiac lagoon.

 

 

When living in Georgia, I caught an 11 lb cat on a floating Rapala, right before dark.

It was a big disappointment, because I thought I was fighting a whopper bass.

In Florida, I caught a larger catfish that I never weighed.

It was on a Keitech swimbait at the mouth of a feeder creek. Cats love the mouths of creeks. 

 

Roger

 

Also, catfish have excellent eyesight. Their eyesight is so good that their eyes are used in medical research. They tend to live in turbid environments, which is probably why they've gotten the rap for having bad eyesight, but it's simply not the case at all.

 

They're extremely sensitive to vibrations, using their swim bladders and otoliths to detect vibrations and sounds. They're much more sensitive to sounds and vibration than a bass is because they have no scales to deaden the vibrations traveling through their skin to vibrate their swim bladders (where sound and vibration detection starts in a catfish).

 

Lastly, they can also detect electromagnetic pulses given off by muscle movements of living prey items. This is likely very useful in tracking prey in dirty water and further proof that they're in fact very predatory animals.

 

Catfish eyes are tiny compared to bass. Bass lateral line scales have pore holes for nerve endings to detect vibration that connect directly to their brain. 

Catfish have well developed barbels to detect odors that allow them to find food without using eye sight. They may have good eyes but they are under developed compared to sight feeding fish like bass. Catfish can definately see good enough to capture small fast swimming bait fish. The majority of channel catfish I catch are on verticle jigging structure spoons worked through shad schools in the middle of the water column, they are feeding on the Shad.

Interesting fish.

Tom

 

Catfish scavenge from both the bottom and up in the water column.  They also hunt while they're scavenging.

We used to use rig up with both Carolina rigs and bobbers. We would re-rig the rod that was not catching fish to the rig that was catching. Rarely did they bite on the bottom and on bobbers at the same time.

 

When i go catfishing I use three different presentations regardless of the bait I'm using. Heavy carolina rig, santee Cooper rig, and a circle hook under a bobber. I cast to generally the same area and have three areas of the water column covered. 

 

Catfish dont use lateral lines like bass, to detect vibration and movement. They go on sense of smell mostly. But they dont just bottom feed. A flathead catfish is an apex predator and prefers live bait. Which swims and squirms on the hook. So they do sense movement better than channels and blues. Channels will eat just about everything. 

 

Cast and wait unless you know there are flathead there and you're targeting them. Then you can use a live bluegill, cut the tail fun off and hook it in the tail end and slowly drag it. 

When I go out on the flats for white bass I will usually catch channels and blues too . They will violently hit  a yo-yoed Red Eye Shad . I think the reason they slam it so hard is to   beat the whites to it .

I've tried multiple ways and rigs over my years of catfishing. After lots of fancy methods and failed outings I've decided on two different rigs for overfishing in lakes. First is what your calling a Carolina rig but I don't use a swivel I use an egg sinker pinch a split shot on the line and tie the hook on a foot below it. My other way is a bobber rig usually 2 or 3 feet deep with a couple split shot a foot up from the hook. Lots of bait options for cats. In spring I like crawlers the best but in summer you get pestered by everything else so much that worms aren't the best choice. Also there is an extensive line of summer baits..livers from various critters, crawfish tails, stink bait, hot dogs, bacon, shrimp,jello marinated chicken breasts and too many others to count. In my experience nothing catches more cats consistently than fresh cutbait of native to your waters baitfish. Around me top producers are shad, green sunfish and goldeneye which is an oily herring type fish.

 

That said I concur with a lot of the things said above. I've caught a lot of cats over the years on things like twister tail grubs and even spinnerbaits. They aren't just scavengers they are also opportunistic feeders. For a fish that's known by many as a slow lumbering trash eating creature I've had them absolutely crush a moving bait.

Someone forgot to tell this catfish he's a bottom feeding, scavenger ? Not sure how he found that motionless popper with it's poor eyesight either ?