John K. Flores: Cold weather cats

January is a great month for fishing blue catfish in the coastal marshes.
Within days, sometimes hours, after the calendar flips to the New Year, many folks do a deep dive into the resolutions they’ve established to make positive changes in their lives. I’m all for that sort of thing, especially when it includes fishing for winter blue catfish to start the year.
In fact, my wife and I happen to have an anniversary that we celebrate on the 14th of January. A number of years ago, when financially we were operating on lesser means while raising kids, we once went fishing on our anniversary for blue catfish to commemorate this important date in our lives.
The day was crisp and very cold, kind of like what we’ve been experiencing lately, and don’t you know the blue cats were biting. We had a great time, and it remains one of our more memorable anniversaries.
A few years later, I made a winter catfishing trip down the Atchafalaya River with good friend Joey Ratcliff from Patterson.
Ratcliff has a camp down river and at one time regularly fished the Lake Salve area. Essentially, catfish all along the Atchafalaya River and its tributaries is pretty much a tight lining affair, when it comes to rod and reel methodology. However, when Ratcliff fishes blue catfish, he does change up a few things.
Ratcliff, in describing the business end of his fishing rig, said, “I don’t like to use the store-bought rigs most people buy and use, with all that stuff on it. In my opinion, it makes noise and tends to be something the fish see that doesn’t look natural. I like to make a staging off my main line itself about 16 inches off the bottom.”
“On the bottom, I’ll use a one one-ounce weight,” Ratcliff continued. “I also use 1/0 Kahle hook. It’s a small hook and I find the smaller the better. It tends to go into their mouth really easy and it’s hard to miss them. It’s almost a definite hook set every time — it usually does the trick.”
Line weight runs the gambit when fishing catfish. Any durable line from 10- to 15-pound test is sufficient. Fifteen-pound test will handle large blue cats many times beyond the line’s rating even in heavy current and deep river waters. Additionally, catfish aren’t known for long, hard fights. In the winter they easily tire after a few initial runs that will bend most graphite rods to the brink.
Heavier blue catfish, like those Ratcliff and I flexed our muscles on, are fun to catch. Though most people prefer smaller 1-1/2- to 2-pound fish for eating, big blue cat meat is great for cutting into strips or even cubes for a fish courtbouillon.
Lake Salve is very shallow. Ratcliff typically starts probing for catfish in the shallows and progressively moves to deeper and deeper water in the locations he’s come to know that hold fish.
“I like to fish the shallows first,” Ratcliff said. “If the fish are on, I’ve got more time to fish. But, if it isn’t happening, I’ll move from 2 to 3 feet of water to 6 or 7. And if no luck there, I’ll go to deeper locations. You can’t always pinpoint how deep of water at first you need to go to catch fish. That’s why I like to start shallow and work my way to deeper water.”
Ratcliff also likes to fish eddies. An eddy will form a back flow of water because of some obstruction or bend in the bayou. In the case of the marshes south of the Intracoastal Canal, the obstruction is usually where the mouth of a canal meets a bayou or possibly convergent bayous.
One of the things Ratcliff looks for in a back water eddy is a slow-moving trash line.
Ratcliff said, “You don’t want a lot of current, because the fish can’t stay still in it. With a slow eddy, it gives the fish a place to get out of the current — out of the fast current. Usually, in a curve along the bayou you try to find backing up water. That water coming back around will form an eddy and usually will have a hole there. Catfish sit in those holes along the drop offs, where you can catch them.”
Ratcliff says during the winter he tends to catch a lot bigger catfish, but less numbers, where during the spring months he catches much smaller fish and higher numbers.
Winter catfish baits include saltwater shrimp, river shrimp “if” you can find them, and nightcrawlers. Nutria liver is a softer bait and doesn’t stay on the hook as long as other baits, but it is a bloody bait that catfish are drawn to.
Another stinky and bloody bait is duck guts. With duck season in full swing, there is always someone who can save a few duck guts for you. Duck guts stay on the hook and are stinky, thus making it a good choice for catfish in the winter.
January is typically a transition month for saltwater anglers and is a bit early for catching bass and bream. But for catfish, particularly coastal blue cats, it can be a whole lot of fun and a great way to spend your anniversary!
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.