Paul Cottingham wrote:
Hello, My good friend and I are going to Margot for a week fishing June the 13th. I would like to know whats the best bait and method to fish for catfish, as this is the species I’m most looking forward to catching. I was hoping to use halibuts, luncheon meat and pellets ..but am worried that possion chats will eat it before the catfish.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your query. Margot does indeed have a fantastic head of big fish including big catfish and the mandarin cats, which are gorgeous fish.
Your method on the whole looks to be fine, but let me just underline a few points that are worth bearing in mind.
Tackle: You should be ok with a 3lb carp rod and carp sized reel to tackle the cats in this lake. I would recommend a good mono line, Berkley big Game or Daiwa Sensor in say 15lb. Your hook link is important and needs to be abrasion resistant. There are a few good catfish hooklinks out there. We used 80lb Dyneema in Spain for instance. Hooks need to be strong and sharp. A heavy wire pattern in a size 1 or 1/0 should be fine.
Bait: I think your best bet is the Halibut Pellet route. These have proven their worth on the Ebro, and during a video shoot with Ron Woodward a couple of years ago proved they work equally as well in stillwaters. As to the poisson-chats, May is usually an early period for them; they won’t have bred yet and are not really active until mid summer. The owner nets his venue every year to remove as many as possible so I doubt you’ll have much of an issue with these fish. I would avoid Luncheon meat as it is too susceptible to being eaten by other species that won’t give you a run and simply leave your line baitless very quickly.
Finally I would suggest you take a glaziers glove to land the fish and a very large unhooking mat. If you hook a fish much over 40lb you’ll struggle to get it in a carp landing net. A glove means you can grab it by the lower jaw and drag it onto the mat. Assistance from a friend is useful here, and it is really not as hard as it may appear.
The banks are not too fish friendly on Margot so as I say a large mat will be a must.
I hope these tips see you get a few cats on the bank.
Regards
Gareth
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