 Welcome back to the Channel Fishing Freaks. Another day and the great outdoors got to love it. We got a couple hours till some rain is coming in and I thought why don't we just do a little catfish dangle right now. Oftentimes during springtime bass fishing when I start to catch catfish on spinnerbaits and things like that throwing up in the shallows I know they're moving up to spawn and do their things right now. Catfish are definitely doing this. This is a great time to do bank fishing for catfish and specifically I'm talking about channel cats and you can catch them on stinkbait. I don't know what it is about stinkbait. It's like little candies for them. It just stinks to high heaven. Right now I'm rigging up a pack by the way. Plug for the new tackle storage. You can pick these up at GuggenSquad.com. This is our backpack. We also have the totes. We have tons of different tackle organization systems now. So you guys go check them out and I got to tell you about a sale that we're having. The sale is going to be going on at the end of this month. It's only a few days. I think it ends the first of May but we're doing I believe it's 30% off all our baits. You could also use my promo code LFG and save another 10% on top of that. So if you guys want to get geared up, try out some of the new bags and gear or just anything. Load up on baits. Great time to do it. If you guys have never fished for channel catfish, something that I'm going to recommend. I'm not a big cat fisherman but I like to use these these little sponge holder dealios. They come in various shapes and forms but you can use a variety of stink baits. It's got freaking hair on the inside. Look at this stuff. Absolute disgust. I don't know if you guys can fully fully get in there on that hair but anyway it's disgusting. This is Danny's. Danny's catfish punch bait. God it just gave me just had to hold it back a little bit right there. And you don't necessarily need really heavy gear for catching channel cats. They don't get really huge like the flat heads and the blue cats. These are 3 eighths out. I have some quarter ounce little egg weights and the line is already in this sponge material. So keys to cat fishing. Good bait. Have you a couple of different rods out that way you have multiple activity because it's not like you're casting and retrieving. We're just sitting down and then comfort his key. I happen to have a nice pad right here. This is actually my hunting pad. I use this for you know sitting. I use it for bracing. Things like that but it is it's just perfect to throw in a little backpack and use as a shoreline sitter. Today is our family night Sunday dinner. We do it with my parents and you know this is kind of a challenge here today because my dad was like hey I know you're going to cat fishing. Should I go ahead and get some salmon just in case you know you don't catch it. So dad challenge accepted. Well we made it down to the water. It's not as windy as I was anticipating. That's fantastic. I think the weights that we have are going to be able to get away with the drift and it is springtime. Texas blue bonnets are going crazy down here. It's an awesome little spot so I'm just going to set up a couple poles right here. We're going to cast them out. 20, 30 yards not that far and we're just going to sit. We're going to sit on our bottom and wait for that. So these are my two rigs that I've got going here. I got one mono one braid. Sensitivity is not really going to be a thing. We just want that rod to start taking off. Usually the catfish on the stink bait they just they eat it. So you definitely want to have a good pair of pliers around. Long pair of pliers so I've got some pliers in the pack. So I've got myself a stick. I've got our stink bait here for this rig right here. So I've got a bobber stop. I've got a 3-8 ounce egg weight barrel swivel and this is probably 20 pound mono that is that is on this little sponge rig. It comes with that. So just wrap that through the swivel and you're good to go. It's like a little Carolina rig for bass. If you guys have kids, I highly recommend this. It's very easy. In fact, Emmy called our first catfish the other day doing this. So stink bait just sticking there. You're going to submerge this in here. Try to angle it so you guys can see. Completely submerge it. This actually is not the perfect type holder for this particular bait but that's okay. It'll work. You just want to pull it out kind of at an angle so it doesn't all come off. And if you get a big old clump of extra that's fine. It's going to be an attractant and we're going to come over here and cast it out. If you have a little bow in your line that's fine. Catfish will take it out but I like to throw it out there. Let it settle on the bottom and just come barely tight. Not enough to where I'm dragging that weight across the bottom so you don't want to get hooked on anything. Another thing I'm seeing is shad right here on the bank that are I don't know if they're spawning or whatever. Maybe beginning to spawn. That's going to bring in catfish as well. Everything is going to be feeding on those shad. So we got the wind pushing some bait over here. So similar to bass. It's a good thing. Let's get our other rod rigged out and then get our seat set right here. That's the best part. Chilling. Wait for that bite. One hand built me a little bite shelf here. It's my bite indicator shelving unit. It's just a piece of driftwood put up in a tree but it's perfect. We could put like another two or three poles right here if I wanted to. Something you're going to see when you're catfishing at a lake are these little taps in your rod. These little taps are often just waves moving in line. They catch the line. So disregard those but when you see a hard light, wow, that's catfish bite. So usually hit it a few times and then they start just pulling. You really don't even need to set the hook at that point. They have it down there so you just kind of reel into them. But I'm going to set the camera back here. Get my pad out and oh, hang on, hang on. I looked a little suspect right there. I got one getting a bite right here. Take it. Yep, it's biting it. Probably just going to have to rebate that one. They've had a hair too early. Picking it up. Actually a blue cat. Torch this thing down to the throat. This is what I was saying. You need apparent pliers. You're going to go do this because there's a lot of times they just, they just take, oh my goodness. Can't believe I got that out. Okay, we're going to pop our stringer, the old meat necklace, fish, number one. Coming back in the water and grab my line off the surface. I was like curious about it. Probably something that would never happen with mono. So far so good, guys. We've got two on the stringer. You know, one's little, one's big. And in Texas, in most of our lakes, you can keep 25 catfish in any combination. You've got to check your specific regulations for each lake. For example, like out here, on your flatheads, I think you can only keep five a day. They have to be at least 18 inches long. And for most of the state, you can keep 25, but only 10 can be over 20 inches. I think it is. So we might have one that's over 20 inches right now, but I doubt it. We got a blue, a blue cat and a channel cat. And there's some hybrid species that occurs well. But blue cats are going to be more gray. They're typically bigger. Channel catfish smaller. And they've got these little like spots usually on the lower half. So I actually got almost had a double right there. But one just came off. I don't know. It was tapping it. Just didn't really take it. Just pulled off. The other one I got, I met Lime sitting out there for a while. So two fresh, two fresh stinkies. Hopefully we'll have two fresh caddies. Give you guys a view from my seat. Pretty good view, although we do have some rain coming in. This is definitely what I'm going to get by. Just not paying attention. Talking to you guys. These fish are in, you know, maybe six, seven feet of water. It's not that deep at all. I'm on the shallow side of the lake. It's not like I'm fishing next to a channel or anything. It's just this time of year. This is when they're coming up. Take it. Take it, buddy. Just barely got him. Got him when he was kind of playing games with it. I had to switch out to some new bait holders because one of them broke. I think it was because I had had it down the throat of that first fish. And then the other one that fish just took, it took my sponge. You know, the most important part. So that's a really good channel cat right there that's going to eat nice and juicy. That's our third fish on the string. Trying to slap me. Real big one. I've definitely had the bites already to get her done for the family meal. That last one felt good too. I've had two come off that felt really great. I've done that steady pull off instead of that tap, tap, tap craziness. So I don't know. I think I did perfect on that one. I let them just slowly take the rod down, came up. We're just doing a lot of twisting. Pulled the hook. Happened sometimes. But got fresh bait out again. Or don't try to get two more. Two more kitty cats. Wow, I have one on. Oh my gosh, it came off. All right, we're going to do a Hail Mary. I'm going to take this thing off. I have one other noodle from my other little catfish kit. Gotcha, baby. Hey, by the way, y'all, catfish have very sharp spines right here. This is how you want to grab them. These little ones can stab you very easily. They'll lock out this dorsal spine and you'll grab them right on that back and then put your fingers under here and they kind of lock those fins out and that way they can't spike up and get you. So grab them while they're locked out and we're going to throw this guy back. Too tiny. My fanny spanked by some catfish out here today. Now I'm just out of rigs and out of everything. God, that one was big. Clutch fish. I needed it. Took everything from me. Regretting my 12 pound mono decision. I went all the way up to 12. I didn't think about all the cover I was going to have to deal with. I'm out. I'm out of ammo here. Oh, and wait, what is this? I just found the no sponge rig as well. So hey, I'm about to get two back in the water. I don't like the no sponge, but it's better than one. Just one. I need surging. I need heavy movement. I think this fish has got it now. Just let go. This is close. It's being the provider of the day. Being a winner. Coming home with the bread. Just got the text. My parents wouldn't got salmon anyway. So it's like they didn't have faith in me. Next time I go, I'm going to bring more rigs. This is fun. A lot of action and just an hour and a half and still got fish to eat. Little catfish helper. They're kind of slimy. But they are. Very slimy. That was a big one. That is a big one. It's a blue cat. Blue cat. He's kind of blue, gray. Let you work in the catfish blue water. Ben, that's a party foul. That's a party foul. All right. We're going to put this ice on top of them. Here we go. So tomorrow night, we're going to eat those, okay? Yeah. So that is going to be it for today, guys. If you want to stay tuned to see how to clean a catfish and blacken it and do the grits that I'm talking about, Stephanie and I will show you how to do all that. It's a really, really tasty way to eat any kind of fish. But catfish is a little firmer and I really like it that way. Right? You do too? I do. Do you like it more baked? Yeah, I like it. I like it in taco. You like taco? That's just a... I like fish tacos. You get a good firm catfish. I don't know. I mean, I like blacked it up. But the grits, definitely. That's good for any kind of fish. So Stephanie, I'll show you how to do that. Again, catfishing. Super simple. You don't need much. They live just about everywhere. It's super fun. If I could change one thing about the day, I would have bumped up my line. I know I said eight and ten pound tests and I got to the lake and I was like, it's kind of low but I should be okay. And I didn't think about the obstructions and everything like that and catching more sizable catfish. I had a couple of catfish I think that were over five pounds. That just took me for a ride. One broke the line. The other one was just really pulling off with it. So you really have to think about that when you're catfishing. Just depends on what kind of catfish you're going after. Subscribe right here for more outdoor action. 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