For decades at Lake Tawakoni, the “trophy” blue catfish season began with the first cooling north winds in October and ended with the spring warm up. Fall and winter was the designated time to go hunting for a giant blue catfish. I’ve fished Tawakoni for decades with some of the best catfish guides on the water that include David Hanson and Tony Pennebaker. In years past, I would break away from hunting big game in the fall to spend some time on the water targeting big blue catfish.
Blues were first stocked at Tawakoni and several other Texas lakes in the late eighties. Previous to the heavy stocking by Texas Parks and Wildlife into Texas lakes, blue catfish were primarily found in rivers. There were a few blues in Tawakoni thanks to the Sabine River but most of the really big catfish were Flatheads.
Nowadays catching flatheads is a rarity, blues have become the king of ‘big fish’ and that’s perfectly fine with me. Most catfish antlers release the bigger trophy class blue cats but the snow white meat from the ‘eater’ size blues makes great fish fry memories! When asked my favorite catfish to eat, I usually answer with, “I love them all but there’s something special about a big pile of crispy fried blue catfish fillets!”
Most consider a blue catfish over 25 pounds a trophy and I concur. When the big ones are on a good bite, it’s not uncommon to catch and release several trophy class fish including some much heavier than twenty-five pounds.
But what about after the water warms up? Do the fish disappear? Don’t they still have to feed? They certainly do and last week’s trophy hunt with guide Tony Pennebaker proved the point. We caught several good size blue catfish including one that tipped the scales at 40 pounds.
As Tony, Jeff Rice and I eased away from the dock in Tony’s big comfortable pontoon boat, I fully expected us to head to relatively deep water to fish but such was not the case.
“Luke, I’ve been consistently catching lots of ‘eater’ size blue catfish in the two- to fifteen-pound range as well as bonus trophy fish up to 45 pounds from water as shallow as 3 feet,” our guide explained. "I’ve got a spot in mind close to some heavy vegetation on the edge of some heavy timber. There is some water just a bit deeper, close to 5 feet close by and I’m guessing the combination of cover and slightly deeper water will pull the catfish in from the adjacent flats.”
After a short boat ride, Tony eased the throttle back and soon the power poles were deployed in shallow water. The boat was anchored rock solid which is a must when fishing several baits close to bottom. A boat moving around on anchor would be counterproductive when bottom fishing.
We were rigged with small chunks of freshly caught shad. Many people think big fish always go for bigger baits but such is not always the case. To prove the point, we baited one rod with a big shad head and after an hour in the water, it never got hit. Tony fishes with a “Santee” rig that uses a small floater to keep the bait up a few inches from bottom, making it much easier for a catfish to scent and position in its mouth.
It always seems to take a few minutes after anchoring for catfish to begin biting; that could be a result of the disturbance on the water by the boat or possibly the scent from the baits needs a bit of time to attract fish. I’ve noticed this when fishing for both channel catfish and the larger blues.
In about ten minutes, I saw the line on the rod closest to me go slack. Had we been fishing with a swaying boat on a loose anchor, this would be a common occurrence but from our solid platform, I guessed a catfish had picked up the bait and was swimming toward the boat.
Tony fishes with circle hooks that ‘corkscrew’ into the fishes mouth when the fish swims away. The old saying, “Crank it, don’t yank it” applies. Had I jerked the rod hard to set the hook, the hook probably would have never set in the fish's’ mouth. But with the reel still in its holder, I cranked the reel handle as fast as possibly until I felt the fish then pulled the rod butt out and began to fight the fish. The first fish of the day weighted about 14 pounds, not a trophy but on the heavy side of what we call ‘eaters’. Ten minutes fishing and we had a fish in the boat that would feed at least 5 hungry fish eaters at my upcoming fish fry!
Jeff and Tony each caught a couple of nice blues from this first anchor and then after about fifteen minutes without a bite, Tony raised the power poles and we motored about 75 yards to another spot and again began boating blues in the 5- to 10-pound range. I hooked what appeared to be a big fish about 40 yards from the boat, watched him surface in the shallow water and then the line went slack. As the fish stripped line from the reel, a “V” of shad popped the surface just ahead of the fish, obviously spooked by the disturbance in very shallow water. Oh, well, you can’t catch them all….but we caught a bunch of them. This spot produced the lion’s share of what would become a humongous fish fry. Then, again, action slowed and Tony motored to what he called his “honey hole.”
All seven baits were quickly positioned around the boat and the rod on the starboard side of the bow bowed heavily toward the water. Jeff wrenched the rod from its holder on the gunwale and the fight was on. This was the big fish of the day and we didn’t want to loose it! About all an angler can do when hooked solidly to such a fish is hang on and make sure the reel’s drag keeps tension on the fish but not too much tension to allow the fish to break the line.
After a good four minutes of hard fighting against both the rod and reel’s drag, the big fish slid up close enough to net. Jeff smiled for photos with his catch, a big hard-fighting forty-pound blue catfish, the big fish of the day!
Now is the time to stock up on tasty blue catfish fillets and, as our recent trip proved, winter is not the only time the big ones bite. Get on the water early or late afternoon to avoid the mid day heat protect your skin from the sun.
Guide Tony Pennebaker can be reached at 903-474-3078.
Email outdoors writer Luke Clayton at lukeclayton1950@gmail.com visit his website www.catfishradio.org
