Reply by: brookieflyfisher      Posted: 7/21/2012 9:11:13 PM     Points: 4896    

I honestly do not fish for catfish often. I'll give you my thought process if I was forced to attack the Chatty gravel pits.

You've got it in your head that there's some kind of magic depth. You're missing the "hidden factors" that are food availability, oxygen availability, and cover. All fish require these three things to survive and it is your job to study aerial photographs, bathymetric maps, and spend time on the water in order to find the spots that have these three requirements.

Let's start with what catfish eat in the Chatfield ponds. They eat primarily live and dead crawfish, perch, shiners, and mollusks. All of these food items live primarily in the shallower parts of the lake. This is even more true at night when zooplankton make their daily migration to the surface to feed on photoplankton. Baitfish and crawfish follow the zoops and the big fish follow the little fish.

So you're going to be looking for large, shallow, productive flats mostly free of weeds. What makes these places even better is the presence of brush piles, rocks, hollow logs, pipes, tires, or anywhere else where the catfish can find overhead cover. At night catfish do not hang out under cover, but the more cover there is the more catfish there will be. There are plenty of these areas in the larger of the two pits, and that's where I'd start fishing.

Good luck.

 Reply by: jman      Posted: 7/22/2012 12:43:59 AM     Points: 1259    

start deep end shallow start at 30 and go up to 10 i would half to say my fav cat depth is 10 to 18 feet.
work the flats fromthe coves to the deep water late night those cats come up on the weed flats looking for food.
make sure your using the right baits man.

 Reply by: jman      Posted: 7/22/2012 12:44:04 AM     Points: 1259    

start deep end shallow start at 30 and go up to 10 i would half to say my fav cat depth is 10 to 18 feet.
work the flats fromthe coves to the deep water late night those cats come up on the weed flats looking for food.
make sure your using the right baits man.

 Reply by: j ry      Posted: 7/22/2012 10:19:57 PM     Points: 0    

this is excellent help i feel like i've been scared to go shallow, because my grandpa's cat wisdom has always been "chuck out there as far as you can" haha.

 Reply by: j ry      Posted: 7/22/2012 10:24:28 PM     Points: 0    

also, i've been using cut bait from Discount Fish and Tackle (good stuff), and the whole idea with the float tube was to catch gills on the fly in the day then drift them at night... was a real let down when that didn't work. I was pumped all week to try that tactic. I've also used chicken liver on nights i get off work late, but i can't stand the stuff, always falling off the hook.

 Reply by: spiritfish      Posted: 7/23/2012 12:04:21 AM     Points: 0    

Wrap you're chicken liver with sewing thread once you have you're chicken liver on the hook. I found you can get about 3 - 4 good casts before it begins to fall apart. I try to land my bait on the edge of a shelf then slowly drag my bait across the bottom for about 20 or 30 feet feeling for weeds or a hole. If I feel a hole I stop instantly, if I feel no weeds after about 10 or 15 feet I stop because you're most likely on a sand barr