Shore fishing for Catfish

I am new to catfishing and would like to catch some more, i have only caught a couple in the past and they put up a great fight, I am just looking for a little advice on how to fish them from shore, the place that i am looking at trying has really fast moving water, and you get hung up all of the time, the first cat i caught was below this dam and i was just using a nightcrawler and a fireball jig. Any info on what type of bait, line and things of that nature are appreciated.
thanks

don’t know if you can get to the April fools GTG on Sun.
but if you can there will be more catfishers than you can shake a stick at
and someone can show a rig that will work

Welcome to the Dark Side.

April 1st at Mill Ruins park downtown there will be tons of catters. Friendly bunch too.

Here’s a good rig for channel cat fishing in faster water close to a dam. Might need a 5 oz sinker depending how fast the current is.

Put a quarter size chunk of sucker on it and your good to go!

Brian – what type/size hook is that? Also – do you always leave that much shank on your swivel knot?

That’s a 2/0…I stole the photo from the sturgeon post in the general forum.

Normally the tag ends of line are hanging out of the hook and both ends of the swivel. Cats and sturgeon aren’t leader shy. The only time I think about trimming them is when there’s leaves, grasses or cotten wood seeds in the water.

I’m a lazy cat guy.

#1.. get out of that fast moving water right now. Look for deeper slack water where baitfish collect, or any kind of water inlet with slower water to fish.

Cats dont like cold water, its that simple. In July, you can find them in current fast enough for rapids(channels).. this time of year they want to save energy and take advantage of easy meals they dont need to take energy to chase.