Knowing the behavior of the fish you target is a key first step to developing a systematic approach to angling. Each species goes through seasonal periods of response, which guide fish location and feeding patterns.
Channel catfish, in particular, display routine seasonal movements and habitat selection in rivers, making location fairly predictable for enlightened anglers. Once you understand what to look for and spend time evaluating spots, you’ll find fish. Then it’s simply a game of working with the best presentation strategy.
CLASSIC RIVER EDGES, CLASSIC CATFISH
In one All In The Family episode, Archie Bunker stood, cigar in hand, next to his favorite living room chair, lecturing his wife, Edith, on his difficulty in getting her to understand the obvious logic of his ways. “The problem,” he told her, “is that I explain in English and you listen in Dingbat.”
So, too, does the easy logic of the ways of catfish in rivers often pass by the casual river angler. Like Edith, most anglers really haven’t a clue. They find a bridge, park their vehicle, and walk down and plant a lawn chair—and never move. Or they get permission to drive down to the river through a farm, park at the point of easiest access—and never move. Catfishing can be so much more, particularly if you actually like to catch them.
Catfish location is all about identifying river edges, but the game must be played in a larger context than “find a river edge, find cover, find catfish.” Every edge, every piece of cover won’t attract catfish during each season—yet edges still ultimately key fish location and, thus, catfishing success.
The larger context in question has everything to do with the natural physical layout of rivers as they proceed from beginning to end, in continuous series of riffles, holes, and runs. This is by now an idea often expressed in In-Fisherman publications, including in our catfish book, Channel Catfish Fever, published in 1989. We first began to write about river layout in the mid-1970s. We still contend that it’s just about the most important basic idea in river fishing. Letters from hundreds of you over the years suggest that this kind of fishing success can be learned, though it takes time.
In any case, it’s remarkable how an angler’s fishing success can improve once he begins to see river structure for what it is and how it so naturally affects catfish location each season. Catfishing, after all, like most fishing, remains first a matter of finding fish.
The process is much easier to learn if you start looking at small rivers, where the catfish’s world is compressed into a smaller area. In a large river, major holes may be half a mile apart. On a small stream, half a mile might have 10 holes. You can move and see lots of water. More importantly, the continuing combination of riffle, hole, and run, and the cover (or edge) elements that often exist there, also are obvious.
Catfishing on small streams relates directly to catfishing on larger rivers. Yet the anatomy of larger rivers is more subtle and confusing. If larger rivers are all that’s available, learning to find catfish may take longer.
