Catfishing with my son

Not much experience with them on Pueblo... but tons of advice on catfish. Are you fishing with a boat? In addition to Pueblo, most of the smaller lakes in the area are stocked pretty heavily. Runyon, Valco, Beckwith, the Lathrop lakes, Brush Hollow to name a few.

My favorite bait is called Danny Kings punch bait. Not sure if anyone carries it here, but you can order it online. It stinks all to be &%$& and draws them in.
I like to fish an extra rod with cut bait (stamp needed).
Lots of people sling their bait out in 20 feet of water and let it sit in the mud. Better to have your bait up off the bottom. Several rigs you can google to do this. I fish my punch bait about 4' under a bobber at dusk and at night. In general, I like to avoid weeds and start out on the dam or a gravelly bar. Drifting in a boat can be great if you can keep it slow.

Finally in winter and early spring pay attention to birds. A bird roost can be a killer catfish hole. Nothing better than a cormorant roost hanging over the water. Catfish will swim circles around it waiting for dinner to drop.

Welcome to the forum! This forum gives back as much as you put in. Hope you find the fish and good friends I have gained on this page

Carolina rig with chicken livers if all fails.

Catfishys are my fave to eat but I cant seem to master cooking them. Thanks for posting............

Early season catfishing can be tough for sure. Cats don't generally get too active till the water temps get to about 50 to 55*. They can be caught before that but from what I've found out you need to down size bait size and I also down size my hook size too. I go from a 8/0 or 9/0 hook to a 6/0 and half the bait size I use when the water warms up, yes I chase big cats, bait size I normally throw when the water warms up is just under the size of my fist for liver and 4' chunks of cut bait, perch bluegills or shad, and this time of year I'll cut that in about half.
Fish the area that transitions from deep water to shallow because the cats will be in the deeper warmer water till the sun heats up the shallow water then they will go into the shallow water in search of bait fish. The bite this time of year won't be as violent as when the water warms up. This time of year it will generally be a light bite or they will pick the bait up and just swim off with it slowly where as in the warmer water temps they will pick it up and head for deeper water as fast as they can. I've had my 10' rods bent in half during warm water and barley move in cooler water.
I hope this makes sense and there is so much to learn about catfishing.
You tube will be your best friend when learning as well as some articles written on here that go into more detailed information than I've given you.
Good luck, tight lines and screaming drags to you and your son.

I was hoping Phidoux would chime in. Fishing the transition from shallow to deep/ downsizing the baits is sound advice this time of year. Killerfihser's Carolina rig is what I was too lazy to look up. As nasty as they are, they are in my top 3 of eating fish.

go here [log in for link] then scroll down to "Other Stories and Articles" and you will find quite a bit of great catfish info

New state record….

Thank you to everyone for your responses all of of the tips and info you have given me will get used you guys are awesome for helping me out and I really appreciate it as far as my setup I just got basic rods and reals and I was thinking of setting them up with like a 30 lb braid and then maybe a 12 lb leader with an octopus hook is what I heard to use with a weight that will slide along the line that way the catfish can run with the bait for a little bit does that sound good

Also no boat this year going to be doing bank fishing

Rig sounds fine. Personally, I would beef up the leader in case you get in to a big one. When I use that punch bait stuff, I use a 17-20 pound leader & a #6 treble. You can break your line just twisting the hook into the bait.

Good luck. I was tying some stonefly nymphs and you guys got me marinating liver.

I'm from Pueblo. You can get some monsters on the res but you can have some great catfishing in Runyon Lake, in town. I do it at night with lanterns. I use spinning gear with 8lb line, using a large egg sinker tied off with a swivel and maybe a 3' leader with a treble hook smothered with a chunk of the veiniest beef liver I can find, which makes it tough and holds to the hook well. I keep the bail open, using a small flat rock on the reel spool edge as an indicator, and wait for the 2nd or 3rd run, before closing the bail and setting the hook. There's nothing like hearing the sudden flip of the rock as the line starts going out. Excellent fillets, no need to gut. Watch out for those fin spines. Good luck!