tips for night fishing for cats

[ragsman]

My Dad and I want to do a night fishing trip for catfish Monday night. We're sort of at a loss for what to do for the best chance to catch a few. we can fish around Scottsboro, or travel up to around chattanooga or the Nuke if we need to. </p>

Should we drift down the main channel?</p>

Should we drift along the channel edges?</p>

Should we tie up in a decent spot, say underneath the Scottsboro bridge (BB comer?), the dam, or some steep channel somewhere, or some other spot one of you may kindly divulge?
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Should we travel to the Nuke and fish around the intake or the discharge conduits?</p>

Should we drift from below the dam (nick) down the main channel for a distance then repeat? </p>

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Thanks!
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[rsimms]

I will tell you in a heart beat... I never catfish with rod & reel at night. Not saying it can't be good or great, I've just never done it. What I have done at night is jug fish... and normally I fish the exact same areas jug fishing at night that I would rod & reel fish during the day. One HUGE difference.... I rarely fish jug lines any deeper that 10 feet. Most are at 6 or 8 feet deep. Even though I'm drifting over water that is anywhere from 15, up to 50 feet deep, I catch cats on the jugs at 10 feet or less.

My belief is that at night, catfish move out of their typical daytime, deep water haunts and start prowling shallow in search of food. Many times I've been on a good deep water daytime bite, and then the sun falls behind the horizon and the bite shuts down.

So, this is not advice based on my own night time rod & reel experience.... but on night time jug fishing experience. I would fish the exact same places.... however I would be sure and set a couple of rods shallow... either under big floats, or simply suspended.

Good luck!

 

[ragsman]

Thanks for the advice Richard! I'm still unsure where to drift, but I guess we'll just put in somewhere and see what happens!

 

[Liveliner]

Good stuff. emoThumbsup

 

[Guest]

Cats move from the deep daytime haunts to shallower flats at night. Fish flats off of the main channel. I like to use big slip floats anywhere from 4 to 10 feet deep over 10 to 20 feet deep water. Like Richard said though jugs are better at night.

 

[SpurHunter]

If your planning to fish below the dam down to the bend, I have free-lined baits with no weight before and done well. Chix livers, breast or cut-baits, not particularly in that order though. Other than that, jugs all the way...