how to drift for catfish

I was intrduced to drift fishing about 5 or 6 years ago and it quickly became one of my favorite ways to fish for catfish

My first time out was with my brother Ron who had heard about this style of fishing from a friend of his.So we loaded up his boat and all of our gear and headed to the lake.we got to the lake and headed out with great visionsof catching a lot of fish or at least enough for both of us to have a good meal.After fishing for a couple of hours and not catching any fish at all we began to think maybe this wasn't such a good way to fish.Needless to say we went home without any fish.The best thing about the whole day was we were on the water.

Several days later Ron's friend Roger called and invited Ron to go drifting.I managed with help from my brother to get a spot on the boat with them

My brother and I soon discovered that we had done just about everything you could do wrong we did wrong.In fact the only thing we did right was being in a boat on the water after that nothing was right.

Now I'm going to explain how to drift fish the way we do it today.

Here is a list of items you will need to get started drifting for some large cats..

Equiptment

1. Boat(That goes without saying)
2. Your favorite rod & reels for catfishing.

3. Rod holders( you don't want to watch your rod going over after you hook a 15 or 20 pound cat)

4. 2 Drift socks( these can be bought at most sporting goods stores for around $20) 5. Marker bouys (optional)

HOW TO SETUP YOUR LINES FOR DRIFTING

The first setup is what I like to call the float assisted drift rig. Even though it doesn't show it in the highly professional diagram I have supplied.I like to add what i call a stinger hook on the end of the hook.I simply tie a small treble hook on the hook about 2 to 3 inches from the main hook.

STRAIGHT LINE SETUP

The second is simply the straight line setup.

The pictures above are of my nephew Justin and myself.That was Justins first 20 pounder,mine was only about 15 pounds.

Teach a kid to fish.

Richard