Entry 65-2

Billy Blakely On How To Catch More Catfish On Strike King Catfish Bait

Bites and YoYos

Billy BlakelyEditor's Note: Billy Blakely, a guide on Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee, is a member of Strike King’s professional guide service, and is known as the “Cat Master.” Throughout most of the year, Blakely can produce a hundred pounds of catfish or more every day he fishes. For the next five days, Blakely will tell us all how to catch more cats on Strike King’s catfish bait.

Blakely: One of my favorite ways to catch plenty of cats for a fish fry is using the Mechanical Fisherman, commonly known in our area as Yo-Yos. Each of these small reels is about the size of a yo-yo and has a coiled spring inside of it. As you pull the line out of the Yo-Yo, the spring gets tighter. Using a locking device on the side of the Yo-Yo, you can hold the spring in place once it’s tightly pulled. Then when a catfish takes the bait, it will trip the lock, and the Yo-Yo will jerk the string back, setting the hook and keeping tension on the line. As the catfish tries to swim away, the Yo-Yo will pull him back to the tree. We tie these Yo-Yos on cypress trees. If we’re planning to fish them at night, we put a piece of reflector tape on the Yo-Yo so we can find it quickly and easily.

Catfish BitesWe use Strike King’s Catfish “Bites” on the Yo-Yos. I’ll usually put out 5- to 10-dozen Yo-Yos at one time. I hang them on cypress limbs and set them so that my baits are at different depths. If I’m fishing the Yo-Yos at night, I expect to catch about 100 catfish, and catching 300 to 400 cats in one night is quite common.

If I’m fishing around a really big cypress tree, I may hang two to three Yo-Yos on the same tree. I usually like to bait up about an hour before dark. As soon as I hang my last Yo-Yo, I’ll go back and check my first one. I’m constantly running my Yo-Yos all night long, because the catfish will hold right beside these cypress trees, waiting for insects and worms to fall in the water for them to eat.

I usually only fish from about 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. until about 11:00 p.m. By then, I’ve usually caught all the catfish that I want to clean, which probably will be 100 to 300 pounds. You can really catch as many catfish as you want to catch when you’re fishing Yo-Yos. Catfish will bite all night long.

Billy BlakelyIf a person wants to really load up with cats, the best way to catch the most cats in the shortest time is to hire a guide, put out 5- to 10-dozen Yo-Yos, and then go rod-and-reel fishing for cats. This way you’ll catch cats on rods and reels and on Yo-Yos. You’ll have all the cats you want to clean.

To contact Blakely and to fish at Blue Bank Resort, write Rt. 1, Box 970, Tiptonville, TN 38079 or call (901) 253-6878. You can also visit them on the web at www.bluebankresort.com or e-mail them at fish@bluebankresort.com.

Next: Doughing Cats




 

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