Catfish Fishing On The Fourth Of July

I usually go camping on the fourth of July and every other holiday for that matter. However this past year has been different as I have a new family that includes a twelve year old boy and a six year old girl. My fishing experience on these camping trips has changed greatly. I still do quite a bit of catfish fishing but I also spend a lot of my time fixing tackle and teaching the kids how to fish which I enjoy very much. Having done this now a few times I have learned some things that make it much easier for me to enjoy the kids and still get some real fishing in.

1  Choose your baits carefully. You don’t want anything that is difficult to keep on the hook. Some good baits for this are the Berkley  Power baits and Berkley Gulp baits. I take a few varieties of these as well as nightcrawlers, shrimp and chicken livers. The chicken livers are for me.

2  Kids do not have a lot of patience and can become bored very quickly if nothing is happening. What I do is have them set one rod up for bottom fishing. I will get them to cast it out and then set it in the rod holder. For them this is generally set and forget until a catfish takes the bait. I keep them occupied by setting up the next rod for drift fishing. I set it up with a much smaller hook, usually a #6, and a nightcrawler. This almost guarantees that they will get bites and eventually catch something even if it is a sunfish. The kids are just happy they caught something.

3 Save a couple of those sunfish the kids caught to use as cut bait after they go to bed.

4 Get yourself a couple of rod holders called Lightnin’ Strike. These are spring loaded and will automatically spring up setting the hook whenever a fish bites. Very useful when you have your hands full fixing one of the kids tackle.

5 Be patient! Enjoy the kids first and do your real fishing later after they have gone to bed. If you do this you will not get frustrated with them and they will enjoy the time they spend with you. Believe me they will never forget these moments. I still remember the times I spent with my father and that was forty years ago.