Catfishing in the Off-Season

Catfishing in the Off-Season

By Brad Durick

It is nearing the end of the football season as I write this piece and I keep seeing and hearing references to the playoff teams that championships are won in the off season. The videos they play go back to recruiting or signing top players and current players working out and practicing in preparation for the next season with the hopes of glory.

Me being me, I could not help but relate those ads and comments to catfishing. When I think about how the seasons go (at least for me) it is true that championships really are won in the off season. What I mean by this is there are many things that have to happen in the off time to be prepared and ready for when we hit the water.

Just to get a few things straight here, I realize that some of you reading this fish 12 months per year so there really isn’t an off season. I also realize that many of you are not tournament anglers. Neither am I, as I use championships to refer to successful catfishing during my outings and guide trips.

Over the years I have found that the off season is as important as the actual fishing season for my catfishing success. This off season preparation has come about with my desire to learn more about the fish and the river have come into play. With that comes the requirement of keeping gear in order and ready to handle a trophy at any given time.

Off Season Gear Repair and Maintenance
This is the area where I find most catfish guys put most of their off season efforts. It is very important to make sure losing a fish of a lifetime is not caused by gear failure. While important it is only one small piece of the championship winning combination.
As far as gear maintenance, it is pretty simple. First, at the end of the season wipe down the rods and check the eyelets for any abrasions or rough spots. If one is bad you can either buy a repair kit or take it to the local rod shop for a repair. This is pretty inexpensive and can save you a fish in the future. While I have never lost a fish to this I have had a ceramic eyelet crack while fishing and before I noticed it made a cast and caused an abrasion so bad that I lost nearly an entire reel full of new line.

Reel maintenance is always very important. One thing I should mention here right now is always back your drags all the way off on your bait casters before you put them away for the season. This will keep your drag washers from becoming compressed and shortening the life of your reel.

Most people with bait cast reels simply pop the caps off and clean up and lube the easy to reach areas of the reels as well as the pawl and worm gear. This is a good annual tune up.

Other people tear the reels all the way down to clean and lube all of the parts and put them back together cleaned up and ready for action. This is the best way but for people like me with no patience and not a ton of mechanical ability this is not going to be an option. What I do with my reels is clean them up, put a little oil on the pawl and worn gear and put them back in the rotation. I fish so much as a guide that I then just take them to a local shop for a full cleaning and rebuild every two off seasons. This is more expensive, but it matches my willingness to work on reels and it also ensures that my reels will have years of life.

Most of my efforts of gear maintenance is put toward good line. Keep in mind I am a mono guy and that requires a bit more care than braids. I start every season with new line on all my reels to ensure I am starting with no nicks or abrasions that I may have missed.
While fishing I am always checking my line for abrasions or nicks and cutting the bad line out to ensure the best results. Keeping good line on the reel and taking care of it solves many problems before they happen.
The last thing I do is to tie up enough snells for half the season. This way I am not wasting time in the boat with clients tying hooks when we should have bait in the water. I generally tie up 100 snells and wrap them up on a chunk of swimming noodle to keep them for when their time comes to get in on the action. The average catfish angler would only need to tie up 20-25 snells.

Of course there is boat maintenance that needs to be done but that is another article all by itself so for now we will not get into it here.

Off Season Study
In 2010 I was presented with huge fluctuations in river level and the fish were not running a normal pattern. I was forced to deviate from the plan and start learning new ways to stay on fish. I had been keeping fish records but had not looked back at them much for reference. When 2010 hit, the records I had did me little to no good as there was no year like 2010 in them yet. That was a challenging year to say the least and I knew there was a way to fish the conditions but had to figure them out.

The off season can provide an invaluable opportunity to look back at the newly wrapped up season and reflect on what was working and what wasn’t. It can tell you small adjustments that were made with success and some that were not so successful.

The first thing I do after the season is wrapped up is set up an Excel file on the computer containing many variables that I think are important to the overall picture I want to research. The variables that I look at are fish per hour, river flow, water level, water temp, metabolism number, barometer, moon phase, water clarity and any other catch notes from the day on the water that I may have noted.

This process to data entry usually takes a couple hours but from there it can tell you about anything you want to know about a specific day or week on the water.

Once I get the data input, I figure out my seasonal catch rate to see if I improved at all over the course of the season. After doing this for seven years I have found that the goal of every trip is to be at about 1.5 fish per hour on average. That 1.5 fish per hour is now my benchmark for minimum catch rate, which studies reveal is five times better than the average catch rate on the river I fish..

The second thing I do is go through and find the best weeks or stretches of the season and run a graph of catch rate with water level, water temperature and barometer. I do the same for the less than great stretches as well. These graphs will then be compared to the catch notes from the day.

From there it is easy to know if I made the right or wrong adjustments on the water at the time. I can also see if there was something major that changed and how the fish reacted. I can also identify anything that sticks out as a success or failure then notes are made for future use.

That is the normal stuff I look at to try to fine tune my day to day fishing. From there I go into the records and start looking for specific pattern changes and try to figure out the factor that triggered these changes. Normally it is a front of some sort or a change in river flow that dictates a discrepancy.

When looking at the small changes sometimes you can match a pattern to seasons past and start to figure out a trigger point so the next time you see the same situation on the water you will be quicker to make an adjustment to the pattern and have a better day or set the pattern faster.

It is this attention to records and the details in the off season that I believe are keys to success of winning a championship to me. Every year a new lesson and a little more fine tuning the old lessons as well as brushing up on the fundamentals.

All of this is a learning process and takes years to perfect just like fishing in general but if you think about sports, they are not an overnight success either. You start out young, then move up the ranks, from their through hard work and dedication. It all proves that most championships are won in the off season.