How to find catfish in a lake or reservoir - where to fish for catfish

hi Luke here with cats and carp calm and I'm going to show you a little bit about how to find catfish I'm going to use this reservoir as an example a lot of people worry too much about their bait their gear and other things and not enough about location the most important factor in catching catfish is location it doesn't matter how good your bait is it doesn't matter how good your rig is doesn't matter how good your rod reel is if you aren't putting your bait in front of catfish you're not going to catch catfish it's the most important factor by far but it's also the hardest one to teach it's the hardest one to figure out and so I'm going to talk a little bit about that today to understand why a catfish chooses a certain location you have to understand what a catfish wants catfish pretty much want only a handful of things number one they want food number two they want to regulate their body temperature our number three once a year they want to have sex and they also want to keep from being killed okay so those are the four factors that catfish think about it and then that's what governs the four rules of being a catfish that govern all the choices you make the number one is finding food okay when catfish want it they want to eat they've got to be close to somewhere where the food is and they got to be in a situation where they can actually have a chance of ambushing the food so if you aren't seeing baitfish if you aren't seeing blue gills and if you aren't not finding a regular food source you're going to have a really hard time finding catfish of any size you know just especially if you want big ones big catfish require a lot of big bait fish to get that size and to stay that size and to survive so if you aren't finding schools of bait fish blue gills and things like that some readily available food source you're not going to find really big catfish the second most important thing to a catfish is regulating their body sure they don't want to be too hot they don't want to be too cold when they're too hot oxygen levels go down they become lethargic that's uncomfortable when they become too cold they become lethargic and they can't hunt properly their ability to move how fast they move and how long they can sustain a swim is as greatly dependent on their body temperature so in the winter time they're trying to stay warm in the summertime they're trying to stay cool so you're trying to find that sweet spot where is the perfect temperature water and usually that's you know I think an ideal world that's about the 60s 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit but in the wintertime just a fraction of a degree half a degree Fahrenheit can make the difference of where our fish chooses to go so without further ado let me show you some really classic spots in a reservoir that catfish like to hang out places that we look for for cat food and let me talk to you about when they work and when they don't work and how to fish one of my favorite places to catch catfish is along emergent weed bed so you can see here there's these weeds growing up out of the water right along the shore it's about three to four feet deep maybe a little bit less right there in front of the weeds and baby fish live and grow up in these weeds and the catfish crews up and down the edge of the weed beds waiting for one of these fish to stray too far from shelter so they can snatch them up this is perfect fishing in the hot dog days of summer and I focus my attention on points like this one the points seem to be the best spot and it's just throw your bait out there a couple feet from the edge of the weeds and just hold on tight another great location to catch catfish are docks now I prefer docks that sit on the water like this one as opposed to docks that sit above the water like this one but you want a dock that isn't super pressured an old rickety dock that's been there forever and nobody goes on is ideal also more boats or barges can also have the same effect as a good dock catfish tend not to live under that much but they do tend to use them as kind of hunting grounds a lot of bluegill and crappie and minnows live under the dock and the catfish will come and make it part of their hunting circuit they'll swim by it and hunt by it this dock is a great example it gets too much pressure for the catfish to live under it but I've caught some really big fish including a 50 pound flathead right from that dock boat ramps are also a really great place to fish I like to fish the edges of the bow ramp you'll see the gravel or concrete extends out into the water for some distance and the sides where the natural lake bed meets the gravel or concrete is a really good spot to throw your lure rock outcroppings are really good especially when they're next to deep water there's a lot of cracks and crevices with the boulders and and little caves underneath and big fish can live in there lots of minnows live in the cracks and the catfish can patrol this this deep cliff ledge the key is to make sure that there's actually some decent deep water this place it goes down to about 20 feet so there's plenty of that and a little point here how you see this rocks come out to a point that's just an added bonus undercut banks are one of the best features if you get relatively deep water next to an undercut Bank that is absolutely fabulous you'll catch pretty decent-size channel catfish and smaller blues and flat heads underneath the bank like right in there often I'll get in there with a bobber if you're fishing from shore and just dip your your rod tip a few feet from shore and then that's just perfect now of course if the water is low this can completely ruin these spots so water level is really affected by this but when the waters normally when the water is normally right at the cut line and the water is not down too far this is really great little caves and kind of little nooks that go back in under under the bank absolutely fab and the bigger the undercut the better now the one of the keys though is it's got to be deep water if you have an undercut Bank it's only like a foot or two deep it often doesn't do much but if it's three or more feet deep then you tend to see it holding a lot of fish the key to undercuts is it has to hold bait fish if bluegill and crappie are living in the undercuts then the catfish are going to be in there too if you ever want to know whether there's good undercut throw a little barber with the worm and if you start catching blue gills on the undercut you're going to catch catfish eventually too so debater there the catfish will be too but depth is really important not all undercuts are the same now in this undercut this is a really good one I've caught some good fish here you can see how there's a steep Bank that leading right up to the water's edge you can extrapolate that slope under the water and assume that the water is deep now I have a fish finder and that's the case the water is really deep so you can see here there's a nice hill that goes straight down to the water's edge that Hill continues under the water and drops down to about 15 feet really rapidly so you have deep water right next to an undercut that makes for a great undercut that is the ideal undercut so you can see here the hill goes up quite a ways the steeper the Bank next to the undercut the better it's going to be because you can assume that that's going to be a steep slope under the water as well as above the water you see here lots of trees hanging over the in shading the undercut as well there's a couple dead trees that have fallen to give some extra shelter that's all just frosting on top of the cake but a really nice undercut with a steep Bank with deep water is a really good spot if you're going to fish tight up against the shore once again this is a really good summer place to fish in the dog days this summer this is a good spot not as much in the wintertime though so let me give you an example of a bad undercut so here's another shoreline it's really undercut but you notice how flat it is there's kind of this little floodplain back there the water right thereby the undercut even with all this debris is only like a foot or two deep okay because it's under that magic three foot mark it's it's really pretty garbage there's only really really tiny little Bowl heads and stuff in there not much of them when you're looking for good shoreline to fish make sure you have deep water in addition to attractive features now here's a bit of shore that's good almost all year round and that holds really big fish you have a steep Bank you have a quick drop-off and you have lots of sunken trees and debris in the water this is an area that'll hold a lot of bait fish and it's deep and so it'll also hold a lot of predators it's great you see this steep Bank going down to the water's edge you see lots of trees have fallen off the steep bank into the water and so for every one tree you see above water there's several under underneath and I like to fish the very bottom of the slope on the top of the slope the middle of the slope can sometimes be really good especially for flat heads but you'll see a lot more channel catfish and blue catfish at the bottom but great great area here in the reservoir the old river bank runs right along this edge and it's really good now here's another example of a bad thing okay you see some countries undercut Bank looks good but once again see it's flat just a floodplain back there there's no slope to the bank that spot right there is only a few feet deep it'll hold the occasional all fish in the dead heat of summer at night but it's not a very good spot it's not deep enough the water temperature fluctuates all over the place and the big catfish don't feel as comfortable in that shallow water now here is where the main body of the old riverbed in the reservoir meets a big Lagoon so there's this little point of land on the right and all that water to the right of that point is the lagoon and the why to the left at the point is kind of the old main river channel it's much deeper in the old main river channel it's about 15 feet and then in the lagoon it's about five feet so right along that Bank you have a really drastic change in depth and that point of land out that mouth of the lagoon is a really good spot in spring and fall for a good-sized channel cast and it's a good patrol area for flat heads at night so it's it's not a bad place to fish a big open flats like these can be really good sweet spots for blue catfish in the dead of winter when it's a nice sunny day in the cold middle of the winter these flats can heat up and the fish the blue catfish can go out on these flats and hunt more effectively in the middle of the winter so if you start to see baitfish out in the flat shallow lagoons next to deep channels in wintertime it's a good spot to target a blue catfish about 5 to 7 feet it's sometimes down to 3 or 4 feet is kind of the ideal Lagoon also these are good spots in the dead of summer for small channel catfish and occasionally a decent flathead now one of the keys to keep in mind is if you find bait you're going to find fish so if you don't have a fish finder a cast net is a good way to not only catch bait but also to locate where the fish are if you're hitting big schools of shad there's a really good chance that there are catfish nearby this is particularly important in the winter time where the shad school up really tightly you can see here this is dead of winter that's 47 degree water temperature big school of shad and there's three or so really nice blue catfish at 26 feet of water and the bottom of a really deep channel see big school of shad there's where the catfish are at in the winter time the shad school up tightly so they're harder to find but when you find them there's tons of them so you can see here once again about 47 degrees this is wintertime the chatter about you know 15 20 feet down and right there on the right on the the bottom of the trough ride the edge of a slope some channel cats sitting underneath the shad eating them so if you find the shad you find the fish well this has been a really quick and dirty summary of the areas I look for in big lakes and reservoirs now for every rule I've given you there's always the exceptions and there's a lot of unique things in and each lake that can cause some really interesting hot spots you know some places mussel beds are really awesome and other places there's hot springs or there's a weir or a dam or lots of things that can cause some really unique features but as far as what you see in lakes and reservoirs all across the country these are some real basic principles so hopefully they'll get you on the right track but get out there and just try a lot of different spots and if you're not catching fish move don't sit and watch your rod tips all night long if you're not getting hit do something differently and if you keep moving around you're going to start learning a whole lot more anyway best of luck to you guys and if you have any questions leave them in the comments section I'm happy to answer them if I can if you like this video don't forget to check out some of our other videos including how to catch flatheads and how to fish with live bait thanks for watching and don't forget to hit subscribe

Channel: Catfish and Carp

Views: 698,738

Keywords: how to find catfish, where to fish for catfish, cat fishing, fish for catfish, find catfish, cat fishing spots

Id: aCI1wXH7KBw

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2015