Catching catfish by trolling with wobblers: the most catchy...

What is trolling for catfish?

Trolling for catfish is one of the best methods for catching this fish. This method allows you to fish from spring, when the ice melts, until freeze-up. Catching catfish by trolling is easy to master even for a non-professional, since this method is universal.

The trolling technique for catching catfish involves fishing on a moving craft. Fishing devices are firmly installed on the edge of the boat. As the boat moves, the bait begins to move, thereby attracting a river predator.

Catching catfish by trolling

Catching catfish by trolling is quite an exciting activity. But this type of fishing is intended for fishing large fish, and often after fighting with a giant catfish, this action takes a lot of energy. But even these physical costs will not force the fisherman to give up fishing for catfish in this way. Anyone who has at least once experienced the feelings of struggle and emotions while pulling a trophy into a boat will remember this for a long time and unforgettable feelings will push the angler to a new trip for fish.

Catfish are caught by trolling using a boat equipped with a motor. The boat is moving at medium or low speed. When moving, the bait is dropped at a distance of fifty meters or more. Trolling gear is a powerful spinning rod with a cast of 40-90 and a length of three meters or more. Lures are used with large, deep-sea wobblers of the fet, shad or crank category. Of course, it is best to use lures with their own frequency amplitude, which could create noticeable waves of vibration. The color of the bait is not so important, but if fishing is carried out at great depths, then the red and acidic color will attract fish to a greater extent.

Read: Fishing incident: how my grandfather and I caught catfish on the Volga

At the indicated speeds, the boat will move along the intended trajectory, and at this time the wobbler, while playing, will reach the soil and even pick at the bottom of the reservoir. Catfish attacks usually occur when bait comes out of a ditch or hole. This is the sensation of impact, in which the load on the spinning rod is felt. The first strike will show how reliable your rod and reel are. Having swallowed the bait, the catfish will desperately resist, and with a large mass of the trophy, these attempts will feel really tough. This is where you have to show your ability to catch catfish. These actions are reminiscent of pumping. Either pull the rod towards you, winding the fishing line little by little with the reel, then release it little by little with strong resistance. And continue this way until the catfish gets tired. At such moments, he turns over on his back with his belly up and allows himself to be pulled towards the boat or to the shore. A string of bubbles emitted by the fish underwater may also indicate that the predator is tired.

After the catfish is pulled to the boat or shore, it is grabbed by the gills and pulled onto land. But at such moments you should not relax. The catfish is still alive and can throw its last somersault. If this happens in a boat, then there have been cases where the boat capsized or on the shore a fisherman got his feet entangled in a cord. Therefore you need to be careful. If it is a large catfish, then you cannot pull it into the boat, but you need to lead it to the shore. Before pulling the trophy into a boat or ashore, the cord from the spinning rod should not interfere with you and should be folded carefully to the side. As soon as the body of the predator is on the shore or boat, the catfish should be immediately euthanized. To do this, you should have a mallet on hand in advance. Hitting the catfish sharply on the head will stun the fish.

Read: Hooks for catfish

Happy trolling for catfish!

Where to look for catfish for trolling?

These predators live in the deepest places. Wherever the fishing is carried out - on a lake, river or reservoir, catfish should be looked for in bottom areas - in pits, under snags and in the pool. The river predator rarely leaves its place of residence. Sometimes at night, in the summer, he swims to the rifts and shallows to feed on small fish.

The catfish lives in weak currents. For its habitat, it chooses trees or snags that have sunk in a body of water, under which it can hide. It also likes irregularities on the bottom, such as humps, holes and massive rocks.

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When trolling for catfish, you need to use an echo sounder. Nowadays, almost every angler can get this technical equipment. Using the locator, you can find the deepest places, outline the bottom topography in detail and identify the most likely points. When fishing in large bodies of water, you can also use a GPS navigator, with which you can mark the most inhabited places on the map so that you can easily find a route to them in the future.

Factors to consider when fishing for catfish

You need to take the choice of fishing gear seriously; it must be stable, dense and powerful, since the object of fishing is a huge fish.

You need to choose the right place for fishing, you should take into account the time of year, because in spring and late autumn these fish are inactive, they are most active in July and August. You should also take into account the depth of the reservoir and the speed of the current, since these underwater inhabitants love dark, calm places, at great depths with a weak current.

It is also worth taking a responsible approach to the choice of gear and its further securing to the boat, so that the rod can withstand the powerful gust of a river predator and does not interfere with the fisherman on the boat. In addition, other fish, such as pike, may bite the bait.

How to catch (fishing technique) catfish by trolling

To use the trolling technique for catching catfish, the safest and most correct way is to fish with the participation of several people. Several anglers are needed when the prey needs to be pulled out of the water, and this is extremely difficult to do alone. The boat must be stable and spacious.

For example, on a channel ten meters deep, we outline a section about one hundred meters long. Determine the approximate location of the hole. We start moving upstream not far from the exit from the pit. We use the echo sounder, having found the right place, release the fishing line, and lower the bait to a depth of eight meters. We move at medium speed. We fix the reel with fishing line and switch the engine to minimum speed. So, the wobbler must reach the required depth and after about twenty meters it is adjusted to normal mode.

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Choosing a place to catch catfish by trolling

The most promising places for catching catfish by trolling are the bed of the Volga and its deep channels, called Erik rivers in the lower reaches. These are most often narrow channels, sometimes densely overgrown with reeds along the banks, but with a current and quite deep holes.

And, of course, the Volga delta, its lower reaches, consisting of branches and channel-eriks, is famous for the best catfish fishing. Catfish are especially successfully caught in these places in the summer - from June to September, since, being a heat-loving fish, catfish are most active at this time.

First, about fishing on the channels of the Volga delta. The optimal criteria when choosing a place for catching catfish by trolling are, first of all, cliffs, under which there are often long, deep holes. These, so to speak, are the sleeping areas of catfish and at the exits of the pits are ambush and hunting areas for this powerful predator. But in the summer, when the weather is warm, catfish often go quite far from their habitats, moreover, to rather shallow coastal areas, riffles and sand spits, where they can often be detected by coming to the surface, especially on warm nights. Catfish melt on the surface like ordinary bleaks.

Often, catfish stay in holes that were formed not by slowly washing out the bottom soil, where the bed and edges have relatively smooth edges, but in technical holes dug by a dredger or in recesses in the middle of flat depths. Such depressions, like failures, gape in some places due to the heterogeneity of the bottom soil, where the washing out of one layer occurs more slowly than the neighboring soil. All this, of course, is possible with a strong current. Catfish also sometimes hang on the edges of such pits. Usually these are edges with a depth of 5-7 meters. Akhtuba and its channels are recognized as famous for such rich catfish places.

The strategy and tactics for catching catfish by trolling can be very different. But the echo sounder often plays a decisive role. It allows you to determine the depths and locations of the predators themselves. Catfish are often clearly visible when they are located directly above a pit bed or above a large, relatively circular pit. Then you should troll directly above the hole. But it also happens that the echo sounder does not show the presence of large fish, although it is not necessary that it is actually not in a given place. In this case, it is best to check the entrances to the pit with bait, those places where there is a strong current. Here, the bottom often has a wavy relief, where catfish are perfect for ambushes and attacks on fish. Moreover, it often happens that such catfish hunting grounds stretch for one or two kilometers in front of the hole.

The Volga, of course, is much deeper than its channels and branches. In the bed of this great river there are holes up to 20 m or more. Fishing on the riverbed is also different in that you can catch really giant catfish here. Like the river, so are the fish.

The choice of fishing location on the riverbed can vary within 10-15 meters of depth, sometimes fishing is carried out in deeper places. How to choose a fishing spot can be shown in the following examples. The classic choice of place is fishing on the edge along a deep and long channel hole. Another place could be the boiling and swirling surface of the river above a deep hole, but although catfish will certainly stay here, it is not necessary that they will also grab the bait here. Sometimes the effective path of a troller runs from the downstream point of boiling whirlpools-drills up against the current and straight along the restless jets of these same whirlpools, making small deviations from the course in the form of zigzags and passing depths of 15-17 meters, ending with the placement of the wobbler behind the edge of 10- 11 meters deep.

Another promising route could be a passage from the beginning of a hole with an edge 13 meters deep along a flat underwater plateau. Here, deviations from the course can be made wider, thereby increasing the useful fishing area of the place. The success of such a route and the number of bites is the more effective, the less actively the catfish takes on the pit itself. Sometimes catfish come out of the pit en masse and stay close to it.

Sometimes passages along the coastal edge near the high right bank, where the bottom gradually rises from a depth of about 14 meters to 10-12 meters, are quite promising. In this case, touching the bottom with a wobbler can be called a successful technique, naturally, if the bottom is relatively clean. But this touch should be periodic; the bait should not constantly cling to the bottom. Therefore, you need to select a wobbler with a specific depth for this location.

Quite often, catfish stay in holes with a depth of up to 18 meters, where bream, bluegill and other “white” fish stay above the bottom. This is what catfish hunt for, being at the lower level, often right at the bottom. Most often, predators come out to the edges of such a pit, although catfish attacks are not uncommon right in the pit, where schools of large roach and other “leucorrhoea” are kept.

Also sometimes effective are trolling routes where the shallow spit turns into a pit edge and a hole. Here you can pass from a depth of about 17 meters, dropping the fishing line so that the wobbler is at a distance of 70 m, and reaching the edge at a depth of 13 meters. At this stage, you need to fix the coil and move in a zigzag along the edge until the braid begins. The most successful fishing points are the entrances to the pit.

Many trollers prefer not to insert rods into fastening devices on board, but keep one rod suspended, which allows them to control the movement of the wobbler at the desired level near the bottom, make a hook in time, and also have time to absorb a strong jerk when hooked on the bottom.

Installation of gear for trolling catfish

It is worth choosing a fishing rod whose length is 2 or 2.5 m. The shorter the rod, the less stress on your hands.

Anglers most often choose multiplier reels that have a line counter, thanks to which it is possible to lower the bait to a certain depth level.

In this fishing technique, you also cannot do without a metal leash, since there is a possibility that a pike may get caught on the bait. And if there is no leash or its breaking load is not enough, the bait will simply disappear.

“Trolling” catfish fishing with wobblers

A trophy catfish can reach a weight of 50 kg or more, so you need to take care of reliable gear.

Rod

For this, durable spinning rods are used. When fishing from a boat, there is no need to have a long rod, so blanks up to 3 meters long are suitable. You should not choose telescopic fishing rods, as they are unlikely to be able to withstand such a load. It is best to choose a plug with a dough from 100 to 150 g.

Coil

Increasingly, marine (multiplier) reels are used to catch large fish. The general requirement is strength, which can only be ensured by metal parts of the structure. At least 100 m of fishing line must be wound onto the spool. It is possible to use an adjustable handle, which can provide normal leverage when fishing a large specimen. It would also be useful to have other functions, for example a ratchet, which can always signal a bite if the fisherman’s attention is switched to another problem.

fishing line

Both monofilament and braided fishing line of suitable diameter are suitable for trolling. We can recommend Salmo fishing line.

Other components

You shouldn’t skimp on other components, such as swivels, winding rings, carabiners, clasps, especially if the tackle is being prepared for catfish. When choosing the appropriate elements, you should pay attention to the proportionality of the power of the main elements of the gear and additional ones.

Lures for trolling catfish

You can fish using the trolling technique using various baits. The choice of this one depends on the preferences of the fisherman, as well as the fishing location.

For trolling use:

silicone baits;
wobblers;
oscillating spoons.

A wobbler is considered the hunter’s best choice for using the trolling method for a mustachioed predator. By choosing the right model, a fisherman can hunt it anytime and anywhere.

Wobblers for catching catfish by trolling should be large. Wobblers longer than 12 centimeters are often used. Such baits are diving baits; they can quickly sink to the required depth and stay there the entire time of the retrieve.

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Oscillating spoons are used throughout the entire fishing season. But it is difficult to fish with them, because it is extremely difficult to set up their stable movement.

Silicone baits are mounted on heavy jigs. The essence of fishing with such baits is that the bait is placed near the very bottom, periodically touching it. This approach is best used in the fall, when it will produce the best results.

Trolling catfish fishing technique

The catfish spends most of its life in shelter or at depth and leaves them for a short time to find food. You can lure the catfish out of the hole by using a kwok. With the help of a quok you can catch catfish during the day. If there is no quok, then you can count on luck only in the dark, although there are periods when the catfish goes out in search of food during the day. This can be either in spring or autumn, when at shallower depths the water warms up faster and the catfish comes to these places to warm up and at the same time find food for themselves.

To increase your chances of catching, you should use an echo sounder to accurately determine the bottom topography. Wiring should begin from the beginning of the pit, making zigzag movements. This will expand the fishing area and make the movements of the bait more realistic. If this does not make any impression on the catfish, you should think about changing the bait or changing the speed of the retrieve.

If, after all the changes in fishing technique, there is no bite, then you will have to change the place to a more promising one.

After biting a catfish, you should not rush or get lost, taking ill-considered actions. Catfish are strong fish that require a certain amount of time to tire them out. Only after the catfish stops seriously resisting can you begin to pull it towards the boat. At the same time, you shouldn’t relax, because the fish fights for its life to the last, and with a powerful jerk it can break the tackle. Hunting for catfish requires careful preparation and adjustment of gear elements. The friction brake should be kept slightly loosened, which will make it possible to control the behavior of the fish.

Properties of wobblers for catching catfish

Trolling wobblers for catfish can be divided into two main types.

Lures of the first type are used for fishing in reservoirs with a depth of no more than 4-6 meters.

When using these wobblers, an important condition is the uninterrupted movement of the bait, especially if it touches the bottom. To which, as you know, catfish react more readily, which often ambushes in the ribbed irregularities of sandy areas of the bottom.

Another type of wobbler is used for fishing in reservoirs with a depth of more than 10 meters. An important condition for the use of such baits is their ability to sink to a certain depth.

Wobblers for catfish of any type usually sink easily to the selected depth. Even if the wiring is done while moving against the current.

It is also worth noting that catfish react more to wobblers painted in acid colors, as they have poor eyesight. Lures that have natural colors usually attract fish in shallow water, especially in clear water.