The Catfish Hunters: Techniques, Science, and Personal Bests

Contents

Special Thanks

Dedication

Endorsement

Introducing the Authors

Authors Approach

Introduction

Is Catfishing a Southern Sport?

Why Has Fishing For Catfish

Increased in Popularity?

The Challenge of Fishing

for Catfish

Mixing in Some Science

Best Baits For Fishing

For Catfish

Bait Preparation

Basic Catfishing Equipment

Boat Setup And

Fishing Technique

Some Thoughts from an Expert

Planer Board Use

Be Prepared and Ready

Pre-Fish Check List

Using Topographical Maps

Rigging for Catfish

Jigging for Catfish

Interpreting Sonar Images

Handling Catfish

Catch and Release Fishing

Seasonal Affect on Catfishing

A Lakeside Chat With Mac Byrum

Broadening Our Horizons

Tidal Water Catfish

Monticello Lake, South Carolina

Lake Murray, South Carolina

Lake Wylie

Lake Wateree, South Carolina

Lake Norman, North Carolina

Santee Cooper Lakes

Kerr Lake Virginia/

North Carolina

Trying Something Different, Flatheads in Georgia and Channels in North Dakota

Our Travels Are Completed

References

Books

Special Thanks

The following individuals have made special contributions to the creation of this book. We offer special thanks for their help and cooperation.

Keith Caminiti, provided his talents to the editing and proof reading of this document, in addition to his efforts to assist in its production.

Dieter Melhorn, offered valuable input and photos that improved the quality of this book.

Tim Mead, Sportswriter and Photographer who provided an endorsement of the book, and permitted us to include one of his articles in this book.

Dru Willis, who braved a windy plane ride to provide the cover Photograph.

Capt. Rodger Taylor, owner of Catfish On! Guide Service www.catfishon.com.

Capt. Chris Simpson, for his technical input about Monticello Lake.

Bill and Nell Tyre and Dale Smith for their hard work on The Altamaha River.

Capt Ron Howard, for his input about Santee Cooper Lakes.

Capt Brad Durick of Grand Forks North Dakota for his technical assistance on the Red River.

Capt Hugh Self, for his input and wisdom about The James River, www.hughscatfishing.com.

Jeff Manning, for his significant technical inputs and photos about Lake Wylie.

Maureen Croes and Susan Jankowski, for their editing and production services.

Dedication

Both authors of this book have served their country as members of the armed forces. We feel privileged to live in country where men and women are free to move about the land as they wish, express their feeling as they desire, and participate in activities of their preference, like fishing and hunting. We dedicate this book to all of the men and women who have served their country at some time and especially those thousands who volunteered and are actively serving today. A special thanks and love is for those who will never have the opportunity continue to enjoy the freedom that they died to protect. Let us never forget those men and women who gave their lives for their country so that we, who survived, can enjoy the beauty of the outdoors and the joys of nature that surround us. God Bless America

Endorsement

By

Tim Mead

Mac Byrum and Jake Bussolini have combined their talents to write The Catfish Hunters, a comprehensive guide to fishing for Catfish. Recognizing the increasing interest in recreational angling for the variety of Catfish species, Mac and Jake want to share their extensive experience with both beginning and experienced Catfish hunters.

Mac and Jake have been at it, that is Catfishing, for a long time. Each has retired from a lengthy and successful career in business and now devotes their considerable energies to angling for Catfish. Mac hosts his own section of the United States Catfish Association website called Mac Byrum’s Catfish University, visited often by the 25,000 members of the Association and a legion of others. Jake lectures at a variety of clubs, tackle shops and outdoor gatherings. Their experience extends from the trophy grounds for Channel Catfish on the Red River outside Selkirk, Manitoba, through the rivers and reservoirs of the southeast, and most of the spots between.

A feature of this book that Catfish anglers will appreciate is the extensive discussions of Sonar technology and how to interpret images that depth finders display. What species is displayed? How big? How many? How should I try to catch the fish I see? Mac and Jake cover these subjects and more in detail.

For beginners and veterans alike, Mac and Jake cover tackle, riggings, other gear and how to use them all. The Catfish Hunters is a useful contribution to any angling library. Its lessons will put Catfish in your boat and smiles on the faces of those who go with you. I’m sure you will profit from reading it.

Who is Tim Mead?

Tim mead is an outdoor writer and photographer living in Charlotte North Carolina. His articles and photographs have appeared in a variety of national and regional publications. He is an Excellence In Craft award winner from both the Outdoor Writers Association of America and the Southeastern Press Association and he is Past President of the later. His current work can be seen at www.TimMeadFishing.com.

Introducing the Authors

Jake Bussolini and Mac Byrum

Where did it start for Jake?

Both Mac and I would probably be considered old timers by today’s standards. Well, maybe I should only speak for myself on that note but, at 75 years of age, I have certainly been around the course a few times. That probably gives me the right, on regular occasions, to discuss the old times with the younger folks, who often find it hard to believe or consider it a joke when I tell them about my experiences as a youngster. Being raised in suburban New England in the 1930’s and 1940’s was probably about the same as being raised anywhere in the country. My toys were few, and those that I did have were simple, and many were homemade by my father who was a carpenter for most of my young life. Both my Mom and Dad worked full time jobs and sometimes even two jobs to stay afloat. I was surrounded by a heavy work culture. The parents of all of my friends were immigrants, as were both of my parents, so a job, or work, were very high on everyone’s priority list, perhaps even number one in importance for most people. Back then, it was not a question of if you worked but more what your job was. It wasn’t necessary that you liked your job only that you showed up every day, on time and ready to work hard.

I can still remember, as a kid in grade school, the boys could not wait for their twelfth birthday, because that was the age when you could get a job on one of the two large tobacco farms that were located in our town. If you were tall enough, you might even be lucky enough to get behind the wheel of a farm vehicle to move it from place to place, as long as you didn’t go into a public highway.

Despite all of the work that I did as a youngster, my father believed that it was important for him and me to fish and hunt together. Looking back at that, based on today’s culture, he never got any instruction in parenting or establishing relationships with his children. He just knew that it was important for he and I to do a few things together and fishing was high on his list. Most of the real fishing in Connecticut, that we were exposed to, was Trout fishing, both with flies and worms. That was it, no fancy lures, no fishing box loaded with artificial bait, just worms taken from the neighbor’s chicken yard.

If you read my earlier book, Freshwater Fighters you might remember the short explanation that I wrote there about my introduction to Catfishing or at lease my first experiences with Catfish habits. It’s not terribly exciting but it is worth repeating, in order to put the Catfish in the proper prospective as one of my life’s experiences, one that has developed and grown to great heights.

Our family home was located on a three acre parcel, mostly wooded. Toward the rear of the property were two small ponds, perhaps no more than 50 feet in diameter. The ponds were naturally created by small rolling hills that dumped large amounts of rain water into the two small gullies. There was rarely more than three feet of water in the ponds and since there were no streams or springs feeding the ponds, the water was stagnant. The ponds provided small skating rinks in the winter but had little other value.

A half mile or so in the front of our home was a larger pond, perhaps two or three acres in size. This pond was also created by natural rain water but was deeper and contained large bull frogs and very small Bullheads. I would often go to this pond to catch bull frogs for a Sunday side dish, and every once in a while I would throw a line in the water and catch a few small Bullheads, which I would take home and put into the two ponds that were on our property. I never thought much about how these fish would survive or even if they would survive. Catching them with a simple rod and line and a small worm was entertainment, nothing more than that. Catch and release was not a term that I had heard before, since catching fish to eat was the main reason for sport fishing at that time. Eating fish once a week was just part of our lifestyle and either I or my Dad supplied the fish during the summer months. No one thought about eating Bullheads back then, at least not in my community, because they did not exist in the regular fishing holes that we frequented.

This practice of transferring Bullheads from the large pond to our small ponds went on for several years without much serious thought about their survival since those two small ponds seemed never to dry up. Our house sat on a hillside overlooking the ponds and my bedroom window on the second floor directly faced the ponds. Again, I never gave this much thought because at my young age, a view was not on my list on important items. One summer when I was about 14 years old, we had a serious drought in the area. On a Saturday morning, I leaned against my open window sill and gazed down at the ponds. To my shock, both ponds were nearly empty, with little more than a puddle at the center of each remaining to support any fish life. I quickly ran to the main pond where I had deposited most of the small Bullheads and to my amazement there were dozens of large fish, 12 or more inches long, struggling to get a better position in the small puddle, struggling for their survival.

My first thought was how to save the fish. Back then, conservation or the environment was not part of our culture or concern but these big Bullheads needed help and I was their only hope. The house was about 200 feet from the ponds and we did not have that much garden hose. I hooked what we did have to the water outlet which was fed by a deep well. I still needed more than 100 feet of hose to reach the ponds. It was still rather early in the morning, on a Saturday and I didn’t want to wake any of the neighbors. So I just ran to their houses, disconnected any garden hose that I saw and ran home to add it to what was already there. I repeated this process enough times to reach the main pond and started feeding fresh water into the small mud hole. I wasn’t too concerned about the second pond because I could not see any fish in the small puddle that was left there. Those fish had either not survived the years or were already dead from lack of oxygen.

Both my Mom and Dad were working that day, so it was several hours before they returned home to witness my rescue activities. There was no problem when they did return except that my Dad indicated that it would take me weeks to fill the pond to its normal level without rain. I decided to continue this filling process only at night since the water system that we had lowered the pressure in the house when the hose was running continuously. After about three days, we got some rain and I had raised the water level in the pond to about one foot of water and decided that I had better return the neighbor’s hoses to them and let nature do the rest. Nature did cooperate with normal rainfall for the rest of the summer, eventually filling both ponds. Each day I would go down to the ponds to see if any fish had floated to the top and to my surprise, I never found any dead fish. I didn’t realize it at that time but this was a real testimonial to the strength and survivability of Catfish, or Bullheads in this case.

Later that summer, after I had some time to dwell on what I had witnessed, I realized that those small bullheads, 4 or 5 inches long that I had transferred to that pond, had survived and grown to more than 12 inches in a couple of years. That size was larger than the Trout that I normally caught in my regular fishing hole, so why not try to catch a few big Bullheads from the pond and see what kind of a meal they would make.? It wasn’t difficult catching two or three of the fish. I simply put a worm on the hook with a bobber about 12 inches from the hook and caught three 12 inch plus fish in about 15 minutes.

I remember my Dad telling me that Bullheads lived in the mud so they needed to be skinned before they could be eaten. Without any real experience skinning a fish, I managed to get all three fish skinned. With Trout the size of our normal catch (6 to 10 inches), we never filleted the fish because we would lose too much meat. The trout were scaled and cleaned and cooked on the bone. That’s the way I suggested that my Mom cook the Bullheads.

I’m going to shorten this part of the story because I could probably write a book about the reactions that we all got when the Bullheads were served as a meal. Having lived nearly their entire lives in stagnant and normally muddy water, eating God only knows what, as normal diet, these Bullheads tasted awful, to say the least. I was brought up being taught that you always ate what was placed on your plate. This may have been the only time in my young life that my entire family was excused from this rule. The best way to describe the taste, as I remember it, is like eating mud. Why should we have expected anything different? The fish tasted like its life—long surroundings and a diet of muddy, stagnant water and dirty insects.

This might not be the best way to describe my introduction to Catfish, but it is a true life experience that kept me away from fishing for Catfish for many years. It was nearly 50 years later when I moved south and discovered real Catfishing that I developed a real interest and love for this species of fish. I selected Mac Byrum as my first real teacher for fishing Catfish, so it is appropriate to hear how he got introduced to this wonderful fish.

Where did it start for Mac?

My life and my experiences probably require fewer words than those of Jake. Not because my experiences are boring or I did less fishing, but I am simply a man of fewer words than Jake. That is probably why Jake has written three other books to share his experiences, and I have chosen the route of establishing the Mac Byrum Catfish University to share my knowledge in small pieces.

My father and both his brothers were big fishermen. They went out fishing whenever they had the opportunity and the first time I remember them taking me along was when I was 4 years old. I got hooked (pardon the pun) immediately and have been an avid fisherman ever since.

I fished on my own in creeks and ponds as a youngster, and caught my share of small Catfish, Carp and Sunfish. When I joined the US Navy, I was stationed at Naval Air Bases that often allowed me to fish both fresh and salt water. I moved up to catching Grouper, Bone Fish and Barracudas. From the sixties through the seventies, I fished from river banks and farm ponds and added Bass to the list of fish that I had pursued, along with large Bluegills and Shellcrackers.

In the 1980’s, a local sportswriter wrote an article about my techniques for catching big Catfish. He described my skills as exceptional. Almost immediately after the article was published, I began getting calls from people who had read the article, and wanted me to take them out fishing, or more appropriately, take them out and show them how to catch big Catfish. That’s the period of my life when I started guiding on a part time basis. Since I wasn’t sure just how effective a guide I was, I only charged for fuel and bait.

My career that was paying the bills, was working as an appraiser. I had a good career, but decided to retire in 1999. At that time, I started taking overload guide trips from another local guide and found that my reputation as a teacher was getting around. I was guiding fairly regularly, and really enjoyed sharing my techniques with those people that I took out fishing. I knew that the more I taught them, the less they would want to hire me again, but my motivation was really to get people hooked on the sport of fishing for both Stripers and Catfish.

In 2001, I decided to start taking the guide business more seriously, and had a web site designed, www.fishingwithmac.com, which I still maintain today. I started to guide on Lake Norman regularly and to my surprise, even though I showed my clients how and where to fish, about 30% of them became repeat customers, who just wanted the joy of catching a nice big catfish, without having to make the investment in a boat and all the gear required.

Many people today know me only as a Catfish guide and they are not aware that between the 1980’s and 2000, I had fished in a number of Striper tournaments and was often in the top five in those events. I won several Striper tournaments on Lake Norman, the latest one in a tournament sponsored by the Norman Fishing Alliance in 2009.

I started fishing for Catfish competitively in 2001. In my first tournament, my partner and I finished second, but I got the biggest fish award with a 41.35 pound Arkansas Blue Catfish. In the next few tournaments I finished in the top five most of the time. My most significant tournament of that period was the Cabelas King Cat Classic, a national tournament that had 240 entrants. My partner and I finished tenth in that tournament, so I felt that my Catfish fishing techniques were well established and very successful.

Until recently, the biggest Catfish that I had caught was a 48.5 pound Flathead, in Lake Norman. As part of my research for writing this book, I increased my personal best to a 56.5 pound Blue Catfish that I caught on the James River in Richmond Va.

I have kept active in several Catfishing organizations because I want to continue to encourage other fishermen to enjoy the experience of Catfishing. I have been a member of the Lake Norman Striper Swipers for 29 years and a member of the Norman Fishing Alliance for 7 years. I am a charter member of the Carolina Catfish Club, where I have held the positions of president and my current position as treasurer.

My approach to being a fishing guide is a little unique, since I let my clients know what is going on at all times. I not only tell my clients what I’m doing, but also why I do it. I love to teach, especially when I have young people on board. I started my Catfish University, which can be accessed from many Catfishing web sites, so I could continue to put out advice to others as it relates to the conservation of our fisheries and assist others in improving their Catfish skills and techniques

When Jake asked me to join him for a couple of years of research, leading to the publication of this book, I saw it as a wonderful opportunity to share my experience more broadly, building on it by fishing many lakes and rivers around the country. The experience has been very rewarding for both Jake and I, having fished some of the best Catfishing waters in the country, with some of the most experienced Catfishermen. We hope that the results of our efforts provide the same reward for our readers.

Authors Approach

A book with two authors would appear to be slightly easier to write, since it would be a collection of knowledge and experience of two people, rather than one. In terms of knowledge collection this is certainly true, but in terms of presentation, it becomes much more difficult. In our collaborations for this book, we realized that our fishing philosophies were the same for the most part, although our individual experiences varied significantly. There were also certain subject matters that were very specific to one or the other of us, and these subjects could not be presented properly, without specific author identification.

To deal with this dilemma, we took the following approach to presenting the material in this book. Most of the content of the book represents the collective opinion and experience of both authors. Where this is the case, the writings are defined in terms of a we context. Where a specific subject needed a direct identification with one of the authors, we identified that by defining which author was making the presentation at the beginning of the discussion with a (Mac) or (Jake). In these cases the text is sometimes presented as an (I), indicating that the material is specific to one author.

This book has also included the opinions of several other experienced Catfishermen. In a few cases, those experts have offered us material that we have specifically identified with them to insure proper credit and recognition.

We think that this approach to material presentation offers some variety to our readers and lends a more personal touch and sometimes humorous outcome in an attempt to present our individual experiences.

Introduction

The Journey Begins

It had been a warm summer on Lake Norman, and both of us had experienced some real fine fishing days, catching plenty of nice Catfish. We often fished together and regularly shared our fishing experiences with other local fishermen and women at a local sporting goods store, by participating in their lecture series, which was coordinated by a local fishing guide, Gus Gustafson. Gus and Mac were both resident pros at this store and I was often invited to participate in the lectures to share my expertise in Sonar imaging.

On this particular day, we had been fishing together on Lake Norman, doing some research, testing water temperatures at different depths. It had not been an unusually hot summer in North Carolina, but there was evidence that some of the bigger Catfish were starting to suspend in the deeper water. The science of freshwater fishing had been an interest to both of us, and during our lectures, it had become obvious that local fishermen and women were getting interested in what we had to say about the science and techniques of fishing for Catfish.

Between the two of us we had accumulated more than 125 years of fishing experience, most of which was in the freshwater environment. Jakes fishing experiences were mostly in the northern regions of the country, and Macs were mostly in the southern region. We talked about the need to branch out our research, examining the procedures and techniques used throughout the United States to see if we could expand our knowledge, or develop new fishing techniques. It started out as just conversation, but soon rose to the level of serious thought when Jake suggested that he would make his Cessna 172 aircraft available to them, so that they could broaden their horizons west to the Rocky Mountains. We wondered aloud if the science associated with Catfishing and the specific fishing techniques really differed from state to state. Without much hesitation, we decided to spend a couple of years gathering data, which means fishing, to see just how much we could learn and pass on to other Catfishermen. We had both sensed a great deal of enthusiasm from fishermen during our regular lectures, so we felt that we would probably end our journey with enough good information to publish a book on the subject, in order to help other Catfishermen improve their game. Jake had more than 30 years of flying experience and Mac had logged more hours than he wished in naval aircraft while serving in the Armed Forces, so flying to different parts of the country to sample regional Catfishing techniques seemed only the natural thing to do. So that’s how the experience began and that’s how this book evolved.

Most seasoned Catfishermen believe that they have discovered and developed their own techniques for fishing the big Catfish. These old timers feel that they need no advice on technique, style of science. Novice fishermen are gaining interest in this species of game fish and are searching for a clear and concise presentation to aid their learning process. This book tries to address both of these types of fishermen, by adding the element of science to many of the old and known techniques. By offering a better explanation of why things are as they are, and not simply relying on folklore or habit, it is the authors’ intent to show that catch rate can be significantly improved with this knowledge. Fishing technique will also be improved based on experience and science, blended together as a learning experience. Our objective is to provide simple explanations of Sonar technology using actual Sonar images representing Catfish and their habits and habitat. The studies and tests performed by the authors, have also allowed the debunking of many popular myths about fishing, such as, the best time to catch fish, the effects of weather and barometric pressure on fish behavior, and the best ways to find and catch big Catfish. The book is well illustrated with more than 100 photos and charts, to draw the interest of even the most experienced fishermen, and written in such a way as to be instructive for the beginner.

We have fished many waters, to gather the information presented here. We have flown our plane to several remote airports, through many weather experiences, to see what other experts have to offer as fishing advice. We have had several successes and a few failures, but we have enjoyed every minute of our ventures. We hope that our experiences chasing big Catfish, will provide as much enjoyment to our readers as it has to us.

Is Catfishing a Southern Sport?

Since both of us live in the southern region of the United States where we are surrounded by Catfish waters and constant tales of fishermen hooking the monster Cats, we would naturally tend to think that the center of the worlds Catfishing is in the south. While planning this book, we wanted to reach as many fishermen as possible, providing what we think is valuable information to assist in a better Catfish catch rate. Initially, we concentrated on southern Catfishing, but later realized that we had to expand our horizons to explore other regions of the country that offered unusual experiences with Catfish.

Catfish, of course, are a world-wide fish species, found in one form or another in almost every country of the world, with the possible exception of Antarctica, where we are told, there are no catfish. In the continental United States, Catfish are probably present in every state in one form or another. To indicate that one state or another has no Catfish, would only serve the purpose of making some residents of those states angry at us. The New England states as an example, are not known for their Catfishing, but we know that there are large Bullheads there. In order to cover the most popular species of Catfish, we decided to concentrate on three Catfish species, the Blue Catfish, Channel Catfish and Flathead Catfish, and to evaluate and possibly fish for these species where they are most dominant as a sport fish. For some reason the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), for purposes of recording record catches, separates the eleven species of Catfish that they record, from the three kinds of Bullheads. If we are going to discuss the geography of Catfish locations, we feel that we have to include some words on Bullheads, since they populate many areas that traditional Catfish do not. The Black Bullhead, as an example, is now found from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, and literally from the east to the west coast. Black Bullheads have been known to grow to 8 pounds and are considered very good eating.

Brown Bullheads have been concentrated in the eastern most regions of the United States on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. They are often stocked in smaller ponds as a business since they are considered very good eating. Brown Bullheads will grow only to about 4 pounds.

The smallest of the bullheads, the Yellow Bullhead, seems to be concentrated more in the eastern areas of the United States. This fish thrives more in weedy waters that are shallow. A 3 pound Yellow Bullhead would be considered a big fish. For the purposes of this book, we will not go into much detail about Bullheads, since