A primer for summer fishing

Luke Clayton

Outdoors Writer

I’ve taken a cue from the wild animals this week and moved early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Wild things have the innate ability to know how to make the best of the seasons and this time of year, they seldom venture forth during the heat of the day. The same with this old outdoors writer but I did get out on the water a couple times and caught a nice mess of fish both times. I also learned or ‘relearned’ a few basics of summer fishing.

While fishing for catfish at Lake Tawakoni with guide Tony Pennebaker, I learned that not all trophy class catfish are landed during the cold weather months and at Ray Hubbard, while night fishing off the dock at my friend guide Brandon Sargent’s boat slip at Sapphire Bay Marina, I ‘rediscovered’ how effective green lights in the water and can be for attracting a variety of species!

TAWAKONI FIRST Guide Tony Pennebaker runs catfish trips throughout the year and a few years ago, he clued me in to a fact of fishing. Big blue catfish can be caught anytime throughout the year but the majority are landed during the coldest of winter months. But even in the springtime, occasional big blues are landed.

In June and throughout July, the blue catfish spawn in underway and big fish become few and far between. Most catfish anglers target channel catfish around holes baited with soured grain or cattle range cubes. By the time August rolls around, the blue catfish spawn is a done deal and the big ones are once again on the prowl, chasing the huge schools of shad that have hatched and matured during the summer.

This is the time when Tony makes long drifts, using freshly caught shad and boats lots of ‘eater’ blues and occasional channel catfish but many trips also produce trophy class double digit fish. Our morning trip last week produced only one bigger fish in the ten pound range but lots of blue catfish in the 2 to 4 pound class that I consider to be some of the best eating in freshwater.

I’ve started using Catfish Pro catfish gear and we fished with a couple of the Catfish Pro tournament series reels and medium heavy rods designed specifically for catfishing. I was highly impressed with the performance of the gear and Tony gave it a two thumbs up as well. The reels cast smoothly and the drag system is designed to hold the biggest of catfish yet is sensitive enough to detect bites from smaller fish.

A good catfish rig needs to be designed to catch big and little catfish and this rig does both equally well.

Drift fishing is by far the best method of catching numbers of blue catfish this time of year and we caught ours making long drifts in flats 12 to 15 feet deep. The number 5 Catfish Pro circle hooks did the trick.

They come razor sharp out of the package and when a catfish grabs the bait the needle sharp point threads onto the fish’s mouth. A hookset is not required or recommended.

As Tony pointed out when fishing with circle hooks, “crank it, don’t yank it!”

It is challenging when a rod bows over in the rod holder not to grab it and begin jerking to set the hook but the proper procedure is to grab the reel handle and crank all the slack out of the line and then remove the rod from its holder and fight the fish.

Listen to Luke’s radio show anytime online each week at www. catfishradio.org.