How to Stay on Catfish year round

How to stay on Catfish year round

  By: Capt. Darryl Smith

 Of

     Captain Darryl’s Guide Service

       Fishing South Carolina & the Santee Cooper

      Through a Lifetime of 47 years of catfishing, and 13 years Catfishing Professionally has given me hundreds of days on the water each year.  This given us 22 confirmed World Records. Fishing on my own or guiding I have dedicated my life to learn how to fish. And I am Still learning everyday!

I have spent time with our state biologist learning what I could about catfish. I have had state biologist in my boat fishing with me. So I have learned even more than just trail and error of catfishing.

So I am going to try to share that info with everyone to try to help everyone a little with their catfishing. Take what I am about to say and try it. If it doesn’t work modify it a little till it does. No one fishes exactly the same way.

Here is what helped me to really start catching fish.

I had one of our state biologists out fishing one day in December in the wintertime. We were fishing little better than halfway up the lake. Lake Marion is 30 miles long. We were catching fish at that time I thought pretty well.

At that time I weighed every fish that came in my boat. He asked how many pounds of fish I had caught that year. I told him just over 22,000 lbs.

He asked me did I ever follow the migrating fish. I replied I try to. He asked how far you think a blue catfish will migrate. I replied maybe 4 miles in a year from deep water to shallow water and back.  He looked at me and seriously said, “We have found by tagging these blue catfish that some move as far as 100 miles in a year from the dams to way up the river and back.” I asked, “So they move like stripers do”? He replied, “Yes they do.” Now not all the catfish will migrate that far! Some stay more local.

Since I understood striper movement from decades of chasing stripers, I know what to do. I took the biologist words and started moving and chasing catfish the next year. I finish that next year up with over 45,000 lbs of catfish we caught, weighed, and recorded in my boat.

Blue Catfish migrate around through the lakes and rivers like striper do. I will start at January 1 and go through the year and tell you what happens. Now remember, Fish DO NOT KNOW WHAT A CALENDAR IS! They go by water temps, the moon phases, and the angle of the sun. (Explanation of sun: In the summertime the sun is more directly over head, while in the winter because the earth rotation the northern hemisphere is more tilted away from the sun, the suns is lower into the southern sky instead of more directly overhead).

            January 1. Our catfish come January 1 can be found everywhere. Our water temps have not fallen below 50 degrees yet. Not quite low enough to concentrate the fish in deepest waters. The schools of baitfish are in deep water, but the pan fish are still scattered.

So what I do as I am running out onto the lakes I watch my depth finder. When I start marking fish as I go through the deep water that will tell you what depth the fish are mostly in. If I am in 50-65 feet of water and the fish are suspended up off the bottom at 25 feet, I look at my Topo Map of the lake and find the sides of the deep water that is at 25 feet.

I rarely try to fish suspended fish! I would rather fish for a catfish that is near the bottom. It’s much easier fishing. In that depth water is where cats feed on baitfish. Now there will still be cats out there in 10-15 feet still chasing pan fish! So you can still drift the shallower water and be successful to.

Now as the water temps start to drop to our coldest time of the year in which can be late January or in February, and March. Once we get to our coldest water temps the cats will mostly all be deep in the deepest water.

The bait will be deeper and the cats go deeper chasing it. The Cats will stay mostly in the deepest or near the deepest water until most year around late February or if a late spring middle of March. This is the easiest fishing of the whole year. The fish are concentrated making it able to put your baits in front of more fish. By putting your bait in front of more fish in a day’s time, you find more active fish and get more bites.

Depending on if we have an early spring or a late spring fish can move early or later in the wintertime up the lakes, generally around March.

Now here is when things start to change. When the days start to warm up in the afternoon warming the surface waters, and then the winds are blowing that warmer water to a shoreline near deep water, the cats will move in the afternoon warmer water in onto the shallower flats as that water warms in the afternoon, going back deep most of the time by midnight when the night cold air starts to cool the water again.

Now this is also when some fish will start to migrate up the lake as well.

Upper end of a lake where the feeding river waters are coming in, the water warms faster there than in the deep water. In the shallow waters the sun can hit the bottom of the lake causing the water to warm faster. The inflow of water from the rivers will move that warmer water down the lake toward the deeper end at the dams, or Bottom end of the lakes.

            Biologists have told me that a Catfish can feel ½ degree change in water temps like we do 15 degrees changes in the air.

As that water warms by late March are flowing down the lakes the baitfish feel that warmer water and start going upstream into it. The cats feel the warmer water and since its prey is moving up stream and they move upstream as well. Think about it, if the fish put their noise into the warmer current and start to swim at ¼ of a mile per hour, in 24 hours that fish has gone 6 miles.

 Now you have fish moving sideways and also going upstream away from the deep water chasing food. You can tell this by watching your depth finder. You can watch the numbers of fish in the deepest water moving over to the sides of the deep water where the bottom depth starts to shallow up a little. Some will start to move up the side’s hill in the deep going shallower. This is when fishing the humps in the deep water really pays off.

You can also start following the riverbeds that are coming down through the lakes from the headwater fallow the fish as they move upstream. Fish use Creek-beds, River Bed, and Ditch to move around threw a lake the way we do using hallways to through a building or hwy to move through a state.

Now this is when you can fish these fish highways and anchor over top of one, put chum down on the bottom and set there and catch fish all day in one spot. The fish are feeling the warmer water coming up the ditch, smelling you chum coming down the ditch so that entices the fish to move more upstream.

Now come late March as the shallow water at the headwaters and around the sides of the lakes start to get up into the 50-degree range, the cats will move way out into the shallows feeding and start to look for place to spawn. NOT ALL CATS SPAWN AT THE SAME TIME!! (At Santee this year I have watched the catfish fill up with eggs, and spawn 5 different times already this year) So you can still catch fish at this time literally anywhere in the lake!

But more of your bigger fish are going to be shallow. Some fish will even go up into the river systems farther feeding and looking for spawning place. (I have seen from being on water some years 300 days a year, the biggest cats spawn first).  This is the time of year the fish are at their heaviest weights due to eggs and fat reserves from the heavy winter-feeding of baitfish.

Some fish by time springtime comes in April or May if late springtime comes May have traveled in our lakes 50 miles or better. Now NOT all cats migrate this far, but a lot do!

Here are examples:

Try catfishing in Packs Flats in December threw early February on a cold winter. Sure you will catch a few, but there just are not that many cats up there. Most of their food has left there because of colder water temps. And what cats are there are so cold from the cold water temps they do not feet everyday.

December-February Go to the back of Jacks Creek, Potato Creek, Wyboo Creek, Taw Caw Creek, Russellville flats, Hog Swamps, Duck Pond, Sparkle Berry Swamps, at the coldest time of the year and tell what you catch,,, it won’t be much!

In December-February Go to the dam on Marion or Moultrie and fish deep and you will do much better.

Look at the canal between the two lakes. May-August you can kill the fish. The rest of the year you struggle to catch many fish in there and can hardly even mark a fish in there.

Now when the water is hot going to all those places mention above and you can kill the fish in the shallow waters.

Go to the deepest water near the dams when the water is at its hottest and see

What you catch, not much!

            Here is why this you can catch fish shallow waters in hot water better than deep water.

            2 sates Biologist explained this to me. I thought when the water was hot in shallow there was no oxygen and the fish would go deep to stay cooler and have more oxygen. WRONG!!!!!!!!

            It was explained to me by the state biologists that the shallow water is where the most oxygen is when the water temps are hot, and the deepest water is dead water with very little oxygen.

            This is caused by the sun shinning threw the shallow waters hitting the bottom and grasses, algae, and mosses cause photosynthesis causing them to produce more oxygen. The sun cannot reach the bottom the deepest water because of our algae, pollen, and plankton blooms up high near the top blocking the sun not let the sun from penetrating down deep to cause photosynthesis for oxygen production.

            Now remember at the first part when I explained about the sun being more directly overhead during the summer months. Sometimes this will cause the fish to feed mainly at night and early morning hours. In shallow waters when the sun is straight over head,, it shines threw the water hitting the fish and will cause them sometimes to only bite once the sun has gotten low in the sky. My clients have seen this time and time again.

Through the hottest time of year I am night fishing only! 2 reasons: 1: Most of my clients cannot take the summertime heat at Santee. 2: The main reason is, most years during the hottest water temps time the fish bite the best at night. Especially the bigger better fish!!!!

            At this time of year I will be fishing in 1-5 feet of water. Yes you can catch BIGGGG cats in shallow water. We have boated cats up to 93 lbs in 3 feet of water and lost bigger monsters. This is the most fun fishing of the whole entire year.

You are in shallow water so when a fish hits, they go ballistic and try to leave the country running hard around everywhere. That is why we don’t get to land a lot of these monsters we hook. There is too much structure in shallow water. When the fish run sideways they run around those stomps breaking or pulling off.

            Now here is the weird part, some days the fish wait until the sun is down to bite, and some days they are biting as soon as you get there and start to throw rods out. The main biting fish will stay shallow until autumn starts to come around.

            Now once the water temps start to come back down in the shallows from 100+ degrees to the 80’s in early autumn the fish scatter back out because oxygen levels are equalizing from top to bottom. Instead of fishing 1-5 feet water I move out to 5-15 feet waters. Also the fish that are in 20-35 feet of water will start back to biting a little better as well.

When the air temps at night start to cool the water temps down up in the rivers that feed the lakes, You can go up in the rivers and watch the baitfish schools moving down the river going to the lakes. The cats and striper fallow them back down. Again Not all the fish will leave the rivers, but a lot will.

At this same time I watch the baitfish go back down through the canal heading back to the lower lake. Our sea run heron and shad start to go back through the grates to get back to the ocean.

During autumn near October the fish are scattered widely threw the lakes from 10-65 feet deep. I have never been able to find a lot of cats in water shallower than 10 feet after the water start to get cool back down into the 60’s water temps. For me they have always bitten better in deeper waters.

This is a good time to fish the very headwaters of the lakes where the water is coming out of the rivers and into the lakes.

Now on the lakes this is when Drift Fishing really pays off. With the fish widely scattered you can cover more bottom in a day. This means putting your baits in front of more fish in a day’s time. Anchored fishing you just cannot put your baits in front of as many fish in the same time of fishing. By putting your bait in front of more fish, means you will find more active fish.

Explanation: (Not all fish are active at the same time. As big as our lakes are you can have a school of fish on one side of the lake active, and on the other side dormant)

How to figure out what fish are dormant or active, watch your depth finder. If the fish are about 1 foot off the bottom, I have found those fish to be more active than fish that are lying on the bottom. Now fish that are suspended way up off the bottom can be caught using straight down lines to a foot over their heads and drift through them.

November and December as the water temps start to get even colder back into the 50’s this is when the sides of the hills and the sides of the deeper water really shine! I love to drift fish the sides of hills and onto of deep humps. You can tell the fish are there by riding watching your graph. This time of year is when you really need to be watching your graph as you are running across the lake.

At this time of year I will leave the dock saying I am going to the dam or deeper water,,, but if I see a lot of fish way before I get there,,, I will ride around and graph them to try to figure out if they are active or not. If they look active I will try them for about and hour, if I am catching fish, I stay there. If not I move on!

Now here is one of my best secrets for this time of year. I am a bream fisherman at heart. When the water temps start to get in the50’s, the bream fall back into the canal. I can go into the canal and drift down it Drop-shot fishing with wax worms on the bottom and KILLLLLL the bream!

While the water temps are in there 60’s dropping down into the 50’s, the big flats that are 10-15 feet deep are excellent places to make long drifts threw. Watch you water temps at this time of year and REALLY watch you’re Depth Finders. This is the time of year that by being able to ready your electronics will really pay off. It can make or break a day of fishing.

Now here we are, back to January again. If we had and early winter come in the majority of the cats are going to be migrated back into the deepest water again. Sometimes it may be February before we get to our coldest water temps time of year. So watch your depth finders and good luck.

You know the best time to go fishing is just when you have time to go fishing!

I hope I have helped a little and not lost anyone. The main thing is to get out there fishing whenever you can. AND TAKE A KID FISHING! You just may save their life!