Catfish connection full#
Using a shovel, he digs in shallow water and dumps each shovel full of sand, muck, and mussels into an old basket fryer. Mussels are plentiful beneath the sands of Lake Wylie near the shoreline, and Kirkpatrick has worked out an efficient way of gathering plenty of bait in a hurry. However, his catfishing, while concentrated on the hot weather months and stinkbaits, comes with some interesting twists.įor starters, Kirkpatrick is a staunch believer in using mussels as baits. His primary approach to catfishing is similar to cane-pole watching during the lazy, hazy days of summer that were an integral part of growing up for so many Southern-born and bred men. portion of the reservoir for crappie, bass, bream and catfish. Rock Hill’s Bennett Kirkpatrick is what local folks often call a “river rat” (Lake Wylie remains, at least on the portion that lies in South Carolina, “the river” to almost everyone). Then we’ll turn to other approaches to show the many ways to fill a stringer with Lake Wylie catfish. Let’s look at the dramatically different tactics employed by two veteran anglers at the reservoir.
One of its most-appealing characteristics is that anglers can catch cats in a variety of ways throughout the year. Lake Wylie, although its major reputation comes from largemouth bass, is a first-rate catfish destination. Also, they lend themselves to a wide variety of fishing techniques. They’re widespread, feed readily on an amazingly wide array of baits, put up a real tussle when hooked, tolerate water conditions of the sort many gamefish can’t endure, and, properly prepared, make wonderful table fare. Whiskers,” “Old Ugly,” back-alley brawlers, or anything else - the members of the catfish family possess many redeeming features for anglers, especially at Lake Wylie. On the other hand, there is no denying that catfish - those ugly, oft-reviled prowlers of lake and river bottoms - have come of age for sporting anglers.Ĭall them by any name -”Mr. I expressed my chagrin at seeing the potential for so much fine sporting activity being harvest for commercial purposes, but now realize that such concerns were, to some degree at least, misplaced. One of my partners in the boat was a Lake Wylie regular and said, in response to my expression of amazement, he had seen untold hundreds of pounds of the catfish pulled from the lake’s depths. The commercial fisherman emptied the catch into one of his coolers, rebaited the trap, and motored to his next catfish-catching device.
The cage turned out to be a fish trap, perfectly legal at the time and, as far as I know, still legal today. While we watched, the boat’s operator used a peavey-like tool to hook a buoy, attached the rope trailing from the buoy to a winch, and lifted a cage from the lake’s depths. Large wire cages were stacked several feet high on its deck, including a number of large coolers. It looked like a water-born quivalent of a truce from county animal-control authorities.
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