Since we first started to catfish, we have been taught that our baits should be sitting calmly on the bottom. What if I said that we could catch more catfish by fishing our baits off of the bottom. This article is designed to describe this type of fishing that I do and how you can do it to catch more catfish.
Suspended Rig can be any type of rig but for the technique to be down properly, you should have your bait off the bottom. In order to do this, you will need to drop your sinker to the lake bottom. Then you will reel up 1 to 5 feet of line and set your rod in the rod holder. Your line should stay vertically below the boat at all times. When a fish bites you will see your rod bow nicely. It is that easy and there is very little confusing a catfish bite.
The best catfish rig for this technique is a Carolina rig with a 1 to 2 oz sinker on it. The leader line allows for the catfish to freely eat your bait without it feeling any pressure. The rig itself is fairly weed-less which will save you tackle in the long run. You can use whatever rig you are most comfortable with but the Carolina rig is the best.
The benefits to using this rig is that it will rarely get snagged. The bait is always above the cover and bottom. This means that you should only see the rod tip move when you get a bite. You will save plenty of tackle this way but that's not the only reason to choose this rig. Catfish are more than willing to move up to eat a bait. Their eyes are positioned to feed in all directions. To be more specific, a flathead catfish's eyes are made to feed upward. Most catfish sit on the bottom and wait for an easy meal to come by. This happens most of the time by a meal floating over head.
This technique will catch some large catfish. Big catfish love to eat big baits and this technique puts the bait right over their head. To catch a big catfish requires a large bait but the rig can handle that well.
Suspended rigs go great with any number of baits. I prefer to use cut bait for most of my fishing and this rig is no different. Simply take a piece of shad, bream, drum, or whatever else is common in your area and hook it on. Choose your cut bait size for the size of the fish that you are targeting. Small cut bait will catch smaller fish while large cut bait will catch larger catfish.
To use a suspended drift effectively, you should couple it with a boating technique called Free Drifting. Do so will increase the amount of catfish that you catch per outing. To learn more about Fishing for Catfish, you can visit http://www.HowToCatfishToday.com.
Thank You,
Justin Mott
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