Using Chum while Fishing for Catfish in a River via Kayak

By: Peter Egan

If you’ve been keeping up with the How to Chum for Catfish series here at PeterEgan.net and on YouTube, you’re already read that the third flood in just over a month between Hurricanes Matthew, Nate and a flood that was entirely due to strong southeast winds, brought with it alligators, which in turn resulted in a downturn in the fishing. The catfish school that seemingly lived in the bayou behind my house disappeared. The only fish were small bream. There appeared to be more gators than fish.

Thankfully, the waters have receded enough that the gators appear to have moved along and the catfish are starting to return.

I decided on Friday afternoon once I was finished with work to take my fishing kayak out and drop some noodles up and down the entire bayou, all the while dragging the chum bucket behind me as a paddled my way to the main river, all the way back down to the end of the bayou, then back to my house. As I paddled up and down the bayou after bringing the scent to the main river and leaving a scent trail behind me throughout the journey.

If you’re wondering what a noodle is, they’re essentially pool toys (those big, long noodle looking foam things often seen in swimming pools where children swim), cut into 4-8 pieces per noodle, with about 3-4 feet of line attached to it, and a hook at the end of the line not tied to the noodle. See the below photos for a visual of what a “catfish noodle” looks like.

The tactic worked, as I caught a mixture of channel catfish and blue catfish, the largest topping out at around 3 pounds. I used a combination of Canadian nightcrawlers and cut shad (caught in a cast net) for bait on the noodles.

I talked with several of my neighbors as I paddled around chasing noodles with fish on them.

I also caught a fish I wasn’t intending to catch, and did so in a most unusual way. As I was paddling through lily pads to retrieve a noodle with a fish on, the paddle must have struck a largemouth bass, which then became entangled in the lily pad stems. It was so stuck, I was able to grab it with my bare hands, landing the 1 pound fish without so much as dropping a line. See the video below for more on the this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

In all, the hybrid fishing trip was a success. I caught so many fish I decided to fillet them and am planning a fish fry for after the Saints game (New Orleans Saints NFL franchise) on Sunday, October 22. I rarely keep fish, so the catch had to be larger than is usual in order for me to go through the trouble of cleaning the fish.

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Above is a photograph of the kayak I used to catch the fish. Below is another photo of me holding a catfish.

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