April 2014 – CatsandCarp.com

Fishing for Catfish in Flooded Rivers

Flooded rivers and lakes can really put a kink in your cat fishing. You have a favorite cat fishing hole and you finally feel like you are dialed-in and then it rains and the water levels rise and nothing works anymore. What do you do when your favorite fishing hole floods?

Fishing for catfish in flood waters can present some unique opportunities

Never worry, flooded water can mean fabulous fishing. Fish don’t stop eating when the water levels rise, they just change where they eat. If you can figure out how things have changed you can use these changes to your advantage.

Fishing For Catfish in Flooded Rivers:

When rivers flood, several of the river’s key characteristics are altered: The current increases, the visibility plummets, the temperature changes (usually falls) and the water levels change.

These changes can affect catfish directly or they can affect the catfish indirectly by affecting their food sources’ routines.

Flooding Affects the Current

Flooding affect the current of the river and current plays a major role in determining where catfish tend to congregate. Catfish love to hang out in slow current. Especially slow current that is in close proximity to fast current. Seems between fast and slow current, log jams, holes in the bottom, the shelter behind boulders, under cut banks are all good places to look for catfish.

When rivers flood the current changes and places that use to be sheltered become a torrent. If you fished a main channel during normal water levels, you’ll find that those catfish have moved to places that are more sheltered from the current when the flooding hits.

After flood waters retreat it can take a day or two for catfish to return. So it important to look for places that are not just sheltered at the time your are there but where sheltered during the peak of the flood as well. What looks fine the two days after a storm may have been a nightmare twelve hours ago and the catfish have not yet moved back in.

Flood sometimes permanently alter the features of a river and wipe out locations that use to be perfect for catfish. Any time there is a major floor reevaluate the river bottom, check to see whether that sunken log or subtle hole is still there.

Flooding Affects the Visibility

Visibility is another major issue. Poor visibility favors catfish. Baitfish typically rely on sight more than catfish do. In the murky water, a catfish has an advantage over its prey.

So when rivers flood and visibility plummets sight-base bait fish tend to be driven to areas where visibility is marginally better. After the flood waters crest, small streams and large sheltered lagoons tend to clear up first. In these areas, hungry bait fish will congregate and hungry catfish will follow.

Additionally, during floods bait fish tend to hunker down and not moved around as much. This means that catfish cannot rely on ambush as much so they tend to go prowling. The safety of murky water and the need to go find their food means that catfish tend to prowl like they traditionally do during the night time in the summer. Consequently, I find that night time tactics work better for catfish during the day time after a flood.

Flooding Affects the Water Temperature

Water temperature is also greatly affected by flooding. A big cold rain storm can dramatically reduce the water temperature. This reduction in water temperature can make mid-day cat fishing productivity increase in the middle of the summer when the water temperature is normally too high or it can shut down early spring or late fall fishing when the water temperature is already low.

In the winter time, a big rain storm from the south can actually have a dramatic warming effects and create some great fishing action. Keep a thermometer handy and look for places that are as close to the optimal temperature as possible after flood.

Flooding Affect the Water Levels

When water levels increase or decrease the bait fish and amphibians will be hiding in thick submerged vegetation like this and the catfish will be prowling along the edges.

Of course, water levels change during a flood. This has the most effect on fisherman who target catfish in the margins. Fishing for catfish under overhanging trees, undercut banks or along reed beds can be tremendously success. However, changes in water levels can kick the legs out from under these hot spots.

These cat fishing spots along the shore are catfish hot spots because they are close to where food sources congregate. Small bait fish and amphibians live in the dense shelter of the shore so that is where the catfish go.

When water levels rise dramatically, some of these locations are no longer are safe for bait fish and frogs. The high water allows predators and current into their shelter so the catfishes’ food retreats further inland.

When the rivers flood look for where the blue gill school have moved to and the catfish will be along the edges of that new margin. Don’t be afraid to fish among flooded trees and bushes.

Making sure your fishing hooks are razor sharp is absolutely essential. By the time you realize that you got a bite the fish the hook point has usually either driven home or been spat out. When fish a feeding cautiously (the way that most trophy fish do) you cannot rely on the fish to hook themselves with vigor. A sharp hook is essential.

Once a fisherman realizes that they absolutely need the sharpest hooks possible they start shelling out $1-$2 per hook on high end hooks. These same fisherman are probably also tying their own rigs. However, if you are spending that much money and time on each rig you are loathed to throw them away when they become dulled. So you either have to perpetually shell out money to replace expensive dull hooks with expensive sharp hooks or you have to learn how to sharpen a hook.

How Often Do You Need To Sharpen Hook?

An example of a #10 hook with a blunted tip.

An example how to sharpen a hook: finished product

I don’t mean to sound cheeky, but….You only have to sharpen your hooks when they are dull. High quality hooks will stay sharp for a very long time if they never contact something hard. I have high-end carp hooks that have landed dozens of fish and are still razor sharp, the same hooks can hit their points on a rock or dig their tips into the mouth plate of a catfish and they become dulled minutes out of the box.

So the question is not “How often should I sharpen my hooks”, the question is “How can I tell if I need to sharpen my hooks?” through experience you can generally gauge sharpness by pricking the palm of your hand with the point of a hook but I find a jeweler’s eye much more helpful.

You can buy a $10 30x jeweler’s eye offline without much fuss. The are small and fit in your tackle box. With the aid of the jeweler’s eye you can visually inspect the point of small hooks (sizes #10 and smaller). If the point has been bent or dulled you can see it and then you can again inspect it after sharpening to see if you did the job right. Visual inspection is the surest way to inspect a hook’s sharpness.

A fine wet stone and 1000, 2000, & 3000 grit wet/dry sandpaper works great.

What Is The Best Hook Sharpener?

The hook sharpeners they sell in tackle shops are generally not fine enough for anyone who is this concerned about hook sharpness. They work ok on very large hooks where a needle point is not as necessary, but are not great for small hooks.

Here are the tools I recommend:

• A cheapo fly tying vice
• A 30x jeweler’s eye
• A fine grit wet stone
• 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper
• 2000 grit wet dry sandpaper
• 3000 grit wet dry sandpaper (or a strap of tooling leather)
• A pair of needle nose pliers.

Use a 30x jeweler’s eye to inspect your hooks and your work

How to Sharpen a Hook?

Start by finding out what is wrong with the point and planing what metal to shave away. Typically this involves altering the angle of the hook point and creating a finer point than what was originally provided by the manufacture.

Hold the hook in the needle nose pliers and lay the part of the hook between the point and the bend flat on the wet stone. Grind the hook with small circle motions. Continuously tilt the hook so that you are grind the hook at different angles not just one. Use the jeweler’s eye to gauge your progress.

Use small circular motions when using the stone and the 1000/2000 grit paper.

Once you have shaved off the metal you wanted, polish the altered metal with the sand paper. Start with the 1000 grit using the same circular motions and tilting. Then repeat wit the 2000 grit paper.

Next, pull out the tooling leather or the 3000 grit paper. Instead of using the circular motions repeatedly draw the hook backwards across the paper, bend first. Tilt the hook as you do this. This should be actually focusing mostly on the point.

Check your progress with the jeweler’s eye and touch up and spots you missed with some sand paper while having the hook in the vice. Your good to go.

If you want to do this in the field, the pliers, the jeweler’s eye and the sand paper by themselves can get the job done in a pinch.

Check out our Youtube video demonstrating how to sharpen a fishing hook.