Its been a strange summer for fishing in the bay for me. I've been catching plenty of Rockfish, Big perch, blues and spot under breakers in the Bay, but I've also been catching lots of catfish in the same schools of breaking fish. I've caught them while jigging spoons, casting swimming shads, I even caught one with a spinner bait, I casted to a fallen tree where I often catch Large mouth bass and the catfish hit the lure on top just like a bass would. I've caught a few catfish with lures over the years, but nothing like this year, In 6 of my last 9 trips I've hooked up with them, A few of the days I,ve caught 2 and 3 catfish per trip on lures. There's been a lot of peanut bunker in the bay, and the catfish are taking advantage of it along with all the other fish. I guess that old belief that catfish have poor vision was just a myth.
They are just opportunistic feeders. During the Rockfish moritorium I loved fishing for Catfish with bait, I was basically a Catfish addict, they are great fighters, plentiful and they taste pretty good to. I think its great to be catching so many now because I've often thought about targeting them once again, and getting them on lures is that much more exciting. I actually think catching a Catfish on a lure is much more rewarding then catching a rockfish on a lure, because its so much more unusual.
