Blue Catfish on the Ledge

Blue catfish have been known to top 100 pounds and regularly exceed 50 or 60 pounds. These lunkers prefer large rivers and can be tough to locate. In the daylight hours look for these fish in the deepest water available along steep drop-offs with shallow shelves on top. The cats drop over the edge during the light and then move up to feed on the shelves in from six to twelve feet of water at night, depending on the available habitat. They can be taken on live bait tossed over the edge of the drop-offs in the daytime and on the adjacent shelves after dark. Rivers seldom have large populations of blues but these fish will be the largest fish in the fishery, capable of eating nearly everything else that swims. Blues are also the fish of legend that lie beneath dams and have scared off divers due to their mammoth sizes.