3 Strange Nights Of Pond Fishing For Catfish In Oklahoma

Pond fishing for catfish is something I hadn't done in a great many years, despite the fact it's one of my favorite ways to go fishing. I love sitting next to dark pond hoping to catch some cats. I just haven't had many opportunities in the past few years. Recently this came up in conversation with a good friend of mine. He informed me that he had a pond near his house on an old farm. He said he wasn't sure of the state of fish, but at one time it did have catfish in it. This was an intriguing thought. As we formed our plan we were both as excited as children. We planned to go after work one night and see if we could get anything to bite.

The weather had been perfect for weeks and the nights had been warm enough to make for perfect night fishing conditions. Unfortunately the night we planned to go an unforeseen event occurred. It got really cold. The temperature that day when we were both were at work was in the mid 70's. That night around midnight when we set off for the pond the temperature dropped to 38 degrees. Of course being and idiot, I didn't consider this possibility and didn't bring warm clothes. On top of that my friend's truck broke down on the way to his house.

We refused to be deterred however and he dug out some heavy winter garb for us to wear and we set off for the pond. We used worms and a bag of vaccum sealed shad I purchased after work. Shivering and cold we sat there with our lines in the water figuring we weren't going to catch any fish.

About ten minutes in to it my friend hopped out of his seat holding his line and stated that he had a fish on. Excited to see what came out of the water I hopped up and turned on my flash light. As he brought it in I reached down and grabbed it for him. It was a small Yellow Bullhead Catfish. In all honesty, I actually didn't know the difference between a Bullhead and a Flathead until the next day when I looked it up. They look very similar but Bullheads only average 2lbs. with a world record of 8lbs.. Flathead Catfish however get huge and the world record is 123lbs.. Flathead Catfish are a common game fish, but Bullheads aren't sought after as often. I don't particularly care either way I was just excited we caught a catfish!

A little while later my friend pulled out a second Yellow Bullhead that was just a bit smaller. I told him I knew it was going to work out this way because when his truck broke down I told him to take it at as a sign he was going to catch more fish. Curse my stupid mouth!

Several minutes later my friend caught yet another Yellow Bullhead! By this point I was calling him names in a good humored fashion. I really wanted to catch one, but I was just happy for my friend especially having his truck break down on him.

We were about to call it a night when my line started moving a little bit. We waited patiently for a minute starring at it when all of a sudden the pole bent. I quickly set the hook and finally brought in my own fish.

By this point we were frozen and ready to call it a night. We were excited to get back out there and give it another try on a warmer night. We figured if they bit that well when it was cold, then we should have way more luck on a warm night. We planned to try again the following night. All four fish were caught on worms. I didn't get a single thing on the shad.

The following night we returned to the pond to give it another try. This night it was 44 degrees. While this is still pretty chilly it certainly wasn't as cold as the first night. We hoped that this might inspire some more fish. We sat there for almost two hours and only caught one fish. We were only slightly disappointed as we shrugged it off as being the weather's fault.

We gave it a rest for one day and went the following night when it was 65 degrees. We were pumped. I bought more worms and shad, hotdogs, and chicken liver. I coated all three in minced garlic. It reeked of the stuff. When we got to the pond I through half of the chicken liver in to the water a few feet out in front of us along with some hotdogs. I was hoping to get the fish excited and feeding in the area. I've had luck with this tactic in the past. Then we strung up our poles and kicked back waiting for the fish...

Which never showed up! We never even got a single bite! We sat there for two hours and never even got a bite! Eventually we packed up and went to a different pond on his property. We didn't get a single bite there either! We fished there for probably thirty minutes and headed to a third pond (My friend's family has a large farm). We didn't get anything there either. Although we did see a large snake that my friend wasn't too excited about. Deciding that we just have to try during the day the next day we called it a night. The next day we headed out in the daylight and still didn't catch any fish! My friend did pull in a large snapping turtle that eventually broke his line. I didn't catch anything, but we did enjoy watching turtles attack my bobber. I've never seen that before.

These fishing events occurred last week, and we are going to give it another shot tonight. If we don't have any luck I'll come update this hub. If we get a good catch however, I'll probably write another hub. Wish me luck!

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