Decided to try my luck at landing one of these big monster catfish, the lake of choice is Lake Lavon Texas, known to have some big catfish. Met up with one of the best kayak catfish – fisherman, in the Dallas area. Jose, known by most of us as Chess101, this is his blog name on the Texas Fishing Forum (TFF).

Hit the water around 8:00 am on a Saturday, was a cool day and the wind was mild out of the West. Was looking like it might be a really nice day for fishing. Today since I knew we would be doing some serious paddling, decided to take out the Jackson Cuda. This is my newest in the fleet and did it ever do great, was a breeze to paddle and handled the big water perfect. Has lots of room and with the comfortable seat made the day relaxing.

Before we get started, let me give you the setup and terms used in most catfishing circles. Most anglers use one of following two rigs, a Santee Cooper or a T rig. You will always get different opinions on each as the best to use, but that is part of fishing. The Santee Copper, is a single line using a float to keep the bait off the bottom. While the T rig uses a line off the main line and above the weight to keep the bait off the bottom. And a drift is just that, you paddle upwind and drift to fish. Mostly across structure of some type, can be a point or key areas out in the middle of the lake. Main bait of choice is Shad, but many choices in this area as well.

Jose decided we should paddle out about a mile from the launch site to set up for the first drift. Jose was using the T rig for the day and I was using the Santee Cooper. We both had 2-way radios; this makes it a lot easier to tell each other what is going on.

Was not long and Jose had his very first catfish on the line, I paddled over to take a look and take pictures. Here is his first fish (of many) a 15lbs Blue cat. Nice size fish as you can see in the picture. But remember this lake is known to have some 30 – 40lbs cat’s.

After everything settled back down, I paddled back upwind to setup for the next drift. I was getting lots of nibblers (little catfish or smart ones) that did not get hooked, just took my bait. Was not long and Jose was onto another catfish. This one came in at 14lbs, another nice catfish. Well to say the least, the day just keep going this direction, Jose fish on Mark no fish lost bait.

Had a great day and made a new friend that goes by Chess101, do know one thing, he is a great fisherman, a really nice person and can he ever paddle. Can not wait until our next fishing adventure, hopefully I will get it figured out and catch a couple. But that is part of fishing, main thing is to get out and relax and have fun.

Mark Palovik