Don’t believe the stigma
Catfishing can be a fun test with a delicious reward
On a recent August morning, Billy Blakley and I, along with Billy’s 11-year-old son, Jack, climbed into Billy’s widebeam War Eagle boat, a craft so versatile it equally serves fishermen, duck hunters and sightseeing tourists.
Blakley is a big, friendly guy with the kind of presence that instills confidence in his fishermen (and hunters). He also is the head guide and manager at Blue Bank Resort, a fifth-generation Reelfoot landmark.
Blakley popped the lid from a Styrofoam bait box, extracted a pencil-size night crawler, gave an approving nod, returned the critter to the box, barked seating instructions to his passengers, climbed behind the wheel and steered us away from the dock.
We passed through a narrow channel and into a section of the lake that would swallow a subdivision. A bald eagle launched from a tree, made a wide, sweeping turn and disappeared over the timber. Along the south shore stretched a football-fields-long carpet of lily pads, each one seemingly the size of a dinner plate; their white blooms like light bulbs in the morning sun. Every spot looked fishy. Blakley guided the boat within casting distance of a patch of cypress that looked like every other patch of standing cypress; knurled, indestructible and stained with bird droppings. Faint voices drifted in from somewhere, mingling with the country music coming from the radio Jack had tuned to a local station: Toby Keith.
Like most veteran guides, Blakley has honed his fishing techniques for success and simplicity. For catfish that means night crawlers fished under a slip bobber with a ¼-ounce sinker. With a single, smooth motion he pitched the rig under some lowhanging limbs to within an inch of a cypress trunk, where it dropped with hardly a splash.
Within seconds the bobber disappeared but we came up emptyhanded. His fisherman was too quick on the hook set. Blakley laughed knowingly. “You have to wait a second when it goes under. But I can’t do it, either,” he said with a chuckle. “If that cork goes down and you don’t get excited, then there’s something wrong with you.”
Another cast and another missed hook set. But I connected on the next strike. The result was a channel catfish about the size of my forearm. A pretty gray/silvercolored fish. Slick and hard and firm and strong enough to put a respectable bend in the B’n’M rods that Blakley prefers. I grabbed the fish carefully with my right hand; my thumb and forefinger firmly behind the dorsal fin, and the pectoral fin secured between my middle and ring fingers.
Catfish are neither difficult nor dangerous to handle, but care is required. The fins are stiff, sharp and inflict a painful injury if they pierce the skin, an unhappy experience known as “getting finned.”
A swift removal of the hook and into the live well it went.
Why catfish?
Catfish are not the glamor pusses of the angling world. They are one of the most widely dispersed fish species on the planet, one of the most widely sought and one of the most delicious.
In North America, catfish can be found nearly everywhere water flows east of the Rocky Mountains. Channel, blue and flathead catfish are the most widely dispersed and widely sought catfish species in the United States, but there are numerous others. And in some parts of the world, catfish species can reach 500 pounds or more. Blues and flatheads can crack the 100-pound mark. All are tremendous fighters.
Still, catfish and catfishing have a stigma among some anglers, a judgment that’s unfair and prejudiced, Blakley said.
His advice: Try it.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” he said. “I’ve heard people say they just don’t like catfishing. I’ve fished for all of them, and I love catfishing just as much as bass or bluegill or anything else.”
Keith Sutton agreed. But what else would you expect from a guy whose nickname is “Catfish”?
“I like to think of catfish as ‘Everyman’s Fish,’ ” said Sutton, a life-long devoted cat man. Sutton is widely traveled in his catfish pursuits, having angled for the whiskered fish through much of North and South America. He also has written five catfish books.
Sutton simply loves catfish and he wants you to love them, too.
“One of the things I love most about catfishing is the fact it is such a varied sport,” he added. “Participants fish night and day year-round for big fish and small, from boats and shore, using natural and artificial baits. ... You can even catch them by hand.”
We finished the Reelfoot morning with about two dozen channel catfish; missed the hook set on a third that many and threw back a few judged too small for the frying pan.
“If that cork goes down and you don’t get excited then there’s something wrong with you.”
Billy Blakley