Catfish Expert

[dinosaur]

I was on another site earlier today where an "expert" wrote a rather lengthy blog about catfish and how to catch them. The gist of the article broke down into three basic premises. He said that catfish were bottom feeders, you should fish for them at night, and you should use a bait with a strong scent.

The problem with these statements is that none of them are true. Catfish will cruise along on the bottom and feel for food but they will feed at any depth and hit the surface. They will leap out of the water chasing shad (their food of choice) and are very fast. Catfish are predators.

They are also diurnal. They hunt 24 hours a day. Also, scented baits are only necessary while still fishing. The expert was right about one thing. He said you should not make a lot of noise. Catfish are vibration sensitive. They don't just feel for their food. They sense it moving and their eyesight is better than you think. If you have a good bass buzzbait you can dive or topwater, you can catch catfish.

I don't consider myself to be an expert but I know I've seen a number of posts on this site with the same misconceptions. Of course none of those were passing themselves off as "expert". Experts always seem to get my goat with what they don't know.