Catfishing (level 1 – 10)

Overview

The Catfish guide.This guide is meant for those who wish to start their first atempts at fishing for Catfish in Missouri. I wil be going over some of the gear choices and give some tips that i personaly found working. Catfishing can be alot of fun, and is a great way to level early on. Their also in my opinion the second easiest catch, right after smaller Pan fish and Crappie.

Catfishing – Some basic thoughts.

Introduction

Hi there everyone, i’m Dakim also known as Erik1986 in FishingPlanet.

This guide was made to give those starting out their first foray into catfishing a few tips on how to catch them. I will be going over some basic things like gear setup, locations to fish and the best time to fish. I hope you will all feel that this guide helped you get started, and good luck fishing after having read this.

Catfish basics.

Some things to know about catfish, are that they tend to be in the verry deep places in the Missouri river. This means you often have to cast further from the shore in order to catch the bigger ones. But your in luck, cause even if that is true, smaller Young Catfish are found not far from the shallows. More on this in the locations section.

The second thing to keep in mind is that Catfish hunt through smell, not sight. While this doesn’t mean that a highly visible line insn’t a deterent to catching them, it does have influance on the bait to use. So the more smelly your bait, the better chance of catching them.

Catfish can come in two sorts in Missouri; You have the Young Catfish, and the Channel Catfish(Adult). There are obvious differences regarding size, but also in behaviour. Channel Catfish tend to nibble and then bite hard, pulling your bobber under quick. They can still take a while to actualy strike, but generaly when they do, its hard and fast.

The Young Catfish are more playful that that. They tend to also nibble at the bait, but often also drag the bobber away without realy hooking. When they do this you often will notice your bobber going against the current for short distances, or accelarating unnaturaly down stream. Important is to have patience in both cases, as striking while they are running with your bobber has a slim chance of hooking the fish, while the nibble can even lose your bait if you strike to early.

So next we will go over the gear.

Gear setup

Starting as low as level 2-3 you can go catfishing with the basic gear, though it is advisable to not try for anny bigger Channel Catfish(Adult) but stick to smaller Young Catfish. Here is a basic setup for low levels.

Rod
TeleFloat 14′ 9″ (level 2)

Reel
MiniSpin 800 (level 2)

Line
Mono .007″ / 0,18 mm (level 3)

Hook
#6 hook (level 2)

Bobber
Oval Bobber (level 2)

Bait
Pet Food (level 3)

*Note: at later levels you can get other reels and a better rod, but this is the absolute minimum i would recommend. For the reel you could take either a MiniSpin 1200 or you could pay gold for the WinCast 1500. Advantage of the WinCast is a higher max drag, which will help out at later levels when reeling in bigger Catfish.

As for the line, smaller .006″ / 0.15 mm Mono lines can be used, but they tend to be weak against Catfish due to their struggling. Expect linebreaks if you dont set max drag lower in those cases.

Here is a image of this setup;

Also, notice i use pet food in this image, but that is a level 3 bait. Cheese (level 2) can be used also, and weight wise isn’t so different.

Now i will show you my own setup, this is what you will be aiming for getting the bigger Channel Catfish. It will have high level equipment, and uses the WinCast 1500.

Rod
OmniFloat 14′ 10″ (level 8)

Reel
Wincast 1500 (level 2)

Line
Mono .007″ / 0,18 mm (level 3)

Hook
#2/0 hook (level 8)

Bobber
Chubby Bobber (level 4)

Bait
Small Cutbait (level 4)

This setup will allow you to have more success at catching the bigger Channel Catfish, though the Reel & Line combo are not optimal. Preferable you would get a stronger reel so you can use the 6lb and higher tested lines, including Fluoro .008″ / 0,2 mm line and up. This would make it easier to reel in the fish, as currently you need to use a hard and short tug method to pull the fish repeatedly towards you, meanwhile reeling in constantly. If your drag is above level 4, you even risk losing your line.

Here is a image of this setup:

Locations & Time

There are several spots where Catfish can be found, but i prefer the northern part of the river. You can cast straight infront of you with a TeleFloat 14′ 9″, or cast towards the lillies a little further out if you have the OmniFloat 14’10”.

This is the spot for your basic float fishing. Mostly younger and smaller catfish can be found here. You can cast in any direction, but i found casting towards the lillies to be best since the bobber used will float downstream alot.

Here is what i caught at that spot. Nice size for a young Catfish

These are the spots to go for if you have any rod that can cast further out, like the OmniFloat 14′ 10″. The Channel Catfish, which is the adult of the species

Here are some screens of what i caught on those places.

Time

Now for what time you fish you should both keep a eye on the fish activity graph on the map screen, and keep in mind that between 12pm and 5-to-6pm are the most active times for Catfish. On the screenshots it was a cloudy day, so i started at 12pm and caught them all shortly after. On sunny days you might have to wait a little longer, to about 2-to-3pm to start fishing.

Here is the map screen, notice the graph at the left showing that peak time is around 2pm. On sunny days the graph will most likely have two peak times, one in the morning (around 9am), and one in midday (around 3pm).

Epilogue

So that was the guide, i will be adding to it as i learn more myself, aldo i am not sure how often. If you have anny comments, sugjetions or corrections, post them in the comments and i will see if they work. If i do add them to the guide, i will be sure to give credit to those who posted it.

As for credits right now, i have no specific people to thank, but rather the whole community itself. When i started out i was aided alot with learning what i now share, and i am still learning new things. This community is verry friendly and helpfull, so thanks to them all.