6-15-25 Steve Douglas, The Catfish Dude

Jim's featured guests tonight were Steve Douglas, "The Catfish Dude" from You Tube and Justin Browning. They shared information on catching giant catfish and their concerns about the preservation of these ancient catfish which are being sold by commercial fishermen to pay lakes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:44):
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Speaker 2 (01:00):
Good evening, everybody, Jim straight here and welcome aboard to
tonight's show. We got a really nice show for you
to nice, especially for those of you who are devoted
to catfish, which is one of my favorite species to pursue,
and I have none other than the catfish dude himself,

(01:21):
Steve Douglass here with me tonight and we're going to
talk about tips and techniques for catching catfish, both eating
sized catfish and trophy catfish. A lot of you probably
recognize Steve from YouTube channel. He's been on there for
how many years now, Steve nineteen years? Nineteen years on YouTube.

(01:44):
That's pretty amazing. You were, if I'm not mistaken, the
first guy to ever do catfish on YouTube, aren't you.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yes, sir? How to videos? Yes, teaching people how to
catch these things. Yeah, I've really enjoyed them.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
And of course you've been on the program with me
several times and it's always a pleasure to have you
on Folks. Tonight, we're going to kind of take you
a through z on channel catfish, blue catfish, and flatheads
because they're all very, very different. There's different techniques for
each of the species, and we're going to talk about

(02:19):
the times a year when they spawn. We're going to
talk about pre spawn and then fishing for the catfish
more or less year round, and the type of baits
and methods that Steve uses and that he's familiar with.
He is well known for keeping things very simple, and
what seems simple to him is not for some of you, folks.
Is my desire for the night's shoulders inspire more of

(02:43):
you to get involved with fishing for catfish because they're
great fighters, and in my estimation, there a sport fish. Steve,
I know you would totally agree with that, sir.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, We've been trying to get them as a sport
fish for many.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Years, yes, sir, and I'm very devoted to to that
project because they offer so much to the angling roundabout
is what I like to call it. Most of you
folks realize I am a multi species guy, you know,
That's what I thrive on. I fish for what's biting,

(03:16):
and catfish have a very special niche there because a
you can catch them year round, and you can catch
them at times of the year when other species are
more or less lethargic and really not doing that much.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, and it's really a family type sport too, and
you can you know, you don't have to have a
big boat to catch these things. You can catch them
from the bank. So that's what makes it nice to
take the family out, get the kids involved.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yes, sir, So we're gonna again go into that and
man in the second part of the eyre, we're going
to talk about trophy catfish in particular and the conservation
of those large fish and some of the problems that
continue to exist about the commercialization of big catfish. And Steve,

(04:02):
I know you're very passionate about that. We've got Justin Browning,
a gentleman that grew up with a pay lake, knows
it from the inside out. He's been very involved in
helping change regulations, promoting changes to keep these big catfish
in our local waters. Steve, just is a quick overview

(04:24):
before we go to break the fishing on the Ohio
River isn't even close to what it used to be.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
No. In twenty ten, I actually did a video where
I've seen the decline in the number of big fish
coming out of the Ohio River and it wasn't until
about twenty thirteen we got to have meetings with the
state officials. We've worked all these years to get regulations.
We've got some of the best regulations now but we
need enforcement. And of course these pay lakes, and I'm

(04:55):
not trying to narrow anybody down, but you know, some
of the payles are legitimate. They'll they'll have channel cat
family fun. And the ones that are really hurting us
are the ones that have the tournaments and the big
trophy catfish. You have to restock those things year after
year after year, a month after month after month, because
they do not last in a payleg. You take a

(05:16):
fifty to sixty pounds blue cat put it in a
stagnant piece of water when they're used to current, and
they're gonna die. And then now the paylegs have to
go out and get more catfish to stock their pay legs.
So that's kind of what we're fighting, is the.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Resource, yes, sir, And again we're gonna talk about that
in depth here in the second hour. So I'm gonna
go ahead and get to the break here. We'll dive
right in on this with Steve Douglas, the catfish dude.
Delighted to have him here. This break is presented by
s M I Marine. They're eleven four hundred Westport Road,
just north of the Gene Snyder StarCraft Pontoons Low boats,

(05:56):
and they'll do great work on your boat. If you
have to troubleshoot it any problems, they can help you
install and learn how to use electronics. And remember you
never get soaked by my friends at SAMI Marine. All right, Steve,
let's talk about the most common catfish in the one
that probably the average angler should at least start on

(06:18):
or can certainly enjoining their delicious to eat, and that's
channel catfish.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yep. They're channel catfish riverwhere you can catch them in rivers,
little little streams, lakes. They're all over the place.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
And you actually grew up fishing for channel cat didn't you.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah. I fished the beach Fork River and the roll
and four rivers really with a tob of worms. One
didn't know you had to use, you know, cut bait
for big catfish back then. But we catched drum catfish
and all that. It's all fun when you're a kid
growing up. And then, of course I got into the
the bad stuff, which is bass after some while, but

(06:55):
I found my way back home in the early two thousands.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yes, sir, And what actually inspired you to that regard?

Speaker 3 (07:04):
I was tired of catching a little three or four
pound bass and I had a buddy of mine that
actually turned me on to bass fishing when we was young,
and then he also turned me into catfishing as well.
He started going down to the Cumberland River in Tennessee
and catching some big fish there. And I've seen the
gas station, and you tell me how big they were.

(07:25):
I wasn't believing it. So he took me down. The
one that hooked me. It was a twenty pound blue cat.
And that was the late nineties, early two thousands, and
I've been going ever since.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Okay, great, let's talk about channel cat their life, habits
and what have you. They're a shallow water fish and
man and made regards. You can catch them around docks,
you know, people's shocks. Yeah, and in the summer, for example,
any place where there's rock.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Rock, gravel. They like that. I mean, people talk about
I wouldn't need a catfish because they're scavengers. The scavengers
actually is pretty much going to be the channel cat.
It's going to eat what other catfish and aren't going
to eat kind of dead stuff. They eat stuff on
the bottom and they will come up and eat you know,
something on the float as well. But they tend to
stay in the shallower water around structure where dead bait

(08:16):
is going to be. So of course you catch them
on so many different grimp liver. I mean, that's why
I say they're the scavengers of catfish. But they're still
good eating. That's the small ones. I mean, I'm not
going to say, you know, the twenty pounds channel cat
if you lucky to catch one, I'd say that's not

(08:37):
going to be a very good one to eat. I
would stick with the twelve to fifteen inches.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
What I like. I like the catch three to five pounds.
But and this is something I think it's important to mention.
But when I lamb, when I'm done, before I take
the skin off, I hold the knife up off the
skin about the eighth of an inch. It'll leave the
red meat on the ye oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's a flashed. In other words, I ended up with

(09:04):
a white filet. I don't want they red meat on there.
Say with white bass, for example, some people say white
bass are strong to eat. Not if you trim the red.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Meat out, you're not the red or the brown. You know,
the catfish sometimes has brown, but it's meant to be red.
But yeah, you just get that. Just make sure it's white. Uh.
And the catfish is you know, say fun if you're
doing it with the family members or the kids. That's
the ones who want to target because they're going to
eat anything. I mean, I've had them. You know, people
say you catch them on ivory soap back in the day. Yeah,

(09:35):
I've had that, and honestly it didn't work the way
it was told. Well, that's why they used steak baite
a lot of times. You know, the cheese baits think babe,
they like stuff that I guess you would think. It
smells if you was a human smell. And I don't
know how they are attracted to it down there, but
they are the actual scavengers. But like say, they're still
good to eat and they're fun to catch, yes, sir.

(09:56):
And they're easy to catch. I say, if you're on
a river, you can go to a rabble bar or
some people may call them a mussel bed. You know,
this fish shallow water with worms. The best thing is
maybe cut bait, shrimp chicken liver is good, but it's
you know, some people get frustrated because they sling it
off the hook before it gets to the water, right right,

(10:17):
But we got. There's fish netting that people can buy
now that hugs the chicken liver and he's stick it
on the hook and it helps hook.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Sizes and line sizes for channel can't What do you
recommend there?

Speaker 3 (10:31):
You know, the hook side thing, And I think it's
a big gimmick because you know, you look at like
a nine Gama got to hook or a nine off
mustad hook, and you think that because it says nine off,
they're gonna be the same size, and they're not. You know,
get a hook size. You know, if you're catching fish
for the smaller you know, smaller mouth, you want to
go with the smaller. I like the circle hooks. They

(10:53):
got to hook themselves. So I don't really want to
tell people what ought to get, but maybe a six,
five or six is a small number. Nine and ten
is a number that I would use for sixty eighty
pound fish right right.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Most of my channel cap fish fishing, I use either
number two or one off.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well, now, if you like fishing under a bobber, you
got a lake or something, you know, you go to
a smaller one. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't stay away
from the circle hook if you're under a bobber. I
would most likely get a J hook for that. Yes, sure,
And with a circle hook.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
There's a trick to circle hooks that a lot of
people don't understand, and that is that they need to
be smelled normally for the hook to operate properly. There's
the whole idea about a circle hook. I'll let you
explain the mechanics of it.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
But when you smell a hook a circle hook, it
kind of gives it a trigger effect. If you know,
you'd lie go straight down when you smell it the
hook boy, and I'm using my hands and the radio
people count there, but you know, it kind of bends
upward and it kind of flexes back, so it's sure
to hook the fish. But the circle hooks, you just

(12:06):
got to let the fish go and take it and
keep going with it. That's when you're gonna get it hooked.
They you don't have to snatch back on it like
you do a jay hook. Correct. But yeah, I really
use the circle hooks for the larger fish and jay
hooks for the smaller fish.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, what I do with the circle hook for the
smaller fish because I hate having the wrestle with them
swallow the bait. Then you got to get your flyers
out taste too much time. I'll bend it out slightly.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
By that, I mean i'll set it. Yeah, and it
works just fine. You don't have to snow when you
do that. I just tied ready to pollen or not
to that, and it works out great. Now. I don't
necessarily recommend that for the big cat fish, right, but
for channel chat it works out fine.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Oh yeah, well most definitely the offset. I do that
to all my hooks.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh do you really even the big hooks there? Tricks
of the trade, Tricks of the trade.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
I would have come up with that first, but you do.
And so it sounds like you know how to catch
cat fish.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, I kind of do. I'm not your league, certainly,
but I'm not a piker either.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
As far as the fishing line, I mean, you just
go with some regular mono. If you're doing channel cats,
you don't need anything big. Maybe twenty pounds tests at
the mold at the most. If you're going with the
bigger breeds, you know you're gonna need some at least
eighty pound braid and some fifty pound mono. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, we'll get into that, then we'll get to the
bigger fish. Now you mentioned the bobber fishing. It is
great around docks and throwing up the rocks. But the
important thing I think people need to realize is the
depth control. It's kind of like crappie. You want to
be a little bit above them. You don't really want

(13:48):
to be below almost ground unless you're in later season,
Like when they go to the sandbars in the flats,
what do you recommend there? Do you drift at all
for them at a year in.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
The summer, And it really depends depends on the where
you're fishing at. You know, if you're fishing on the river,
you want to find the sandbars. You want to kind
of lay down log on a sandbar or mud and
fish with them. You know, if the water's four foot
you probably want to set you barbert two and a
half foot. You know, like I say, we I do
say they scavengers. You can either anchor on them, or

(14:22):
the bait's on the bottom of the bait or of
the river, or you can suspend them and they're going
to come up. But like you say, you got to
have it above them, yes, sir, to come up and
get that one.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
I'll tell you one of my favorite techniques in the
summer and when they're up on the flask, like when
the bluegills spawn in May. One of my favorite techniques
because it'll catch are moving all the time right for
the spawning beds, looking for crawfish, what have you. I
like to use shrimp because nothing of the champion kit
catfish would rather eat than a crawfish.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
And you lost the sames to crawl fish is.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
A piece of shrimp, right And I'll use like a
drop shot and I'll drift. I'll just let the wind
slowly drift me along and that way you're bump bump
bumping until you find them, much like you bump for
the big cat fish.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Right now. That we do a lot of suspending, but
we generally do it and anywhere from thirty to eighty
ninety foot of water. But that's for the bigger cats.
On suspending over under a bobber, you know, that's one
technique that really works. There's different bodies of water too.
That technique really works good at Tatersville Lake. I discovered

(15:31):
this back in my bass days. You know, you'd have
a black light coming off the side of your boat
and you used to pitch a pork jig up in
the bank. But we did that with catfish one night
right before the spawn, and about every time you pitch
it in, you know, three or four pound channel cat
would smoke it, and you just you stay on the
troller motor at you know, zero point five six mile

(15:51):
an hour and just keep flipping the banks. If you
barber didn't get hit, pull it back in flipping foot
or two above it right and man, then we caught
the heck kind of channel.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Cat like that what we're using as bacon.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
We had a smaller board of stuff. We had nightcrawlers,
crowd eds and cut cut shad.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Did you cut shed? It's hard to beat for any
of the three species it is. I mean they just
well that's the main food. I had a mendo.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Oh that's the main forest for sure.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, sir. When you're fishing for channel cat, do you
ever pay real close attention to the bake balls and
try to to target areas that have more bait than not?

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Uh, you want to you want to be around some
bait or it's close bait. But you know that that
old logjam that you're throwing on too collects bait as well.
All the you know, small menus and fish are trying
to hide from the bigger backs and stuff, so they're
going to hang around. But yeah, you want to find
shad close to where you want to.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Fish, Yes, sir, My theory about that for all the
species game species is no bait, keep.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Moving you're you're in dry water.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
You know, your chances are so much less if there's
no bait present then it is in a normal circum.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, it's got to be close. But if you get
close bait and a big lay down log lay down,
that's you don't don't skip it right.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
One of the things that is really really effective for
channel cat in the summer is fishing underneath the docks.
If a person knows had a sling cast in underneath
the dock with a piece of a cut bait, oh
my goodness, can you ever murder?

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Oh yeah, well that's again just like an old log
landing there. They like cover yess to be like the cover. So, uh,
you know, a lot of docks on lakes and stuff
have a lot of human activity too. There's a lot
of stuff thrown over, hot dogs and their head and
stuff like that, so they know where to stay.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
And there's a bluegil there feet on and it's it's
it's a really nice technique. And in terms of a
big river like the Ohio River, you're.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Looking for current break from currently, but you know, the
Ohio River is sometimes it's like a lake in the summertime,
you can't find any current current. Brakes are good. But
you know, the flats like me and you talked about
a while ago, maybe necessarily not the sand flat, but
it's like a gravel flat, and those gravel flats also

(18:18):
produce muscle beds, and that that's you know, it's nothing
to catch fish on a muscle bed. Put any live
well and then take the fish out after a while
and there's muscles all in your live well where they've
kind of regurgitated. You know, most fish, when you put
them in a live well, they're going to regurgitate what
they made last day. That's how they cope. I guess.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, well i'd be sick somebody put it in
my head, dark place. Yeah, that would definitely be part
of the process for me.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
But channel cats can be pretty much caught anywhere, you know,
with a hook and bobber or or like you said,
a little small rig.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yes, sir, yes, sir. All right, folks, come back and break.
We're gonna move on to the trophy catfish, which is
Steve's bread and butter, is what he dearly loves. I've
been fortunate enough to fish with Steve, and to say
he knows his stuff would be an understatement. So stick
with us. We'll be right back after the news. The
news has brought you by most Old Properties Heart Realty.

(19:25):
Paul Thomas is the broker there. He's an outdoorsman who
knows hunting and fishing type of properties you're looking for.
He's got farms, wildlife properties, and vacation homes for sale.
Check out the current listings at m O P h
A r T Realty dot com. All right, Steve, let's
talk about the big big fish, and that's the blues

(19:47):
and the flatheads. All right, I'll let you dive in
because you are the catfish dude.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
What do you want to know bits, Yeah, rigs for
these catfish you're gonna need I don't want to say
a specialty, but you're gonna need a rod that's going
to be able to handle, you know, up to a
one hundred pound cat face. There's plenty of rods out there.
You can actually get them at Walmart cheaper, but a
better stiffer rod, I think is what you need to
hook them and bring them in. As far as the

(20:15):
line is concerned, I like braid, and I run about
eighty pound braid and fifty pound monto filament. So i'll run,
I'll tie. That depends on which technique you use. There's
about three techniques that I do use is dragging, drifting,
and suspending.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Okay, let's start with dragon.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Dragon to use a Carolina rig or not a kind
of a santy Cooper rig. I didn't invent it, it
was just one. But you have a sinker that drags
on the bottom of the river or lake, and then
you have a piece of mono filament. From that sinker,
swivel to a float, and then from that float, give

(20:56):
it about six more inches and you put a hook
on the end of it, so it kind of makes
you bake float. Your sinker's on the bottom. Dragon, and
you'll get out in the middle of the lake or
river and just let it hit the bottom. I use
generally about three ounces. If I'm in sixty seventy eighty
foot of water, I use six ounces, But you want
you want to stay in contact with that bottom all
the time and run your boat probably zero point three
too point five mile an hour, and just a lot

(21:19):
of times you know it can't get technical because you
can just drag behind your boat with a Sandy Cooper rig,
or you can put planar boards on and really spread
your your presentation out with my boat. And I just
don't have planear boards. I'm only going to have about
a twenty foot swath of water I can cover with
the planear boards. I've got one hundred foot and I

(21:39):
do like to keep my boards pretty tight to what
I'm fishing, and a lot of times it's going to
be ledges, and you know, thirty foot's a real good
number anywhere you go on the river after the spawn,
So you want to you want to keep that presentation
on that ledge, either down on the bottom and up
at the top and everywhere in between, and just just

(22:01):
go along. And sometimes you may not get a fish
for an hour, but trust me, going at a go
another fifteen minutes. If you're tired of that and you
ain't got nothing, go another fifteen minutes. Because I've seen
lightning happen just like boom, you'll have three fish on
all at once, So you just got to find the
pods of fish and drag through.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Now do you specifically target the deeper portions in the
river the obviously for the big ones.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, except early in the spring when you know they're
fixing to come on to the spawn, you want to
go a little bit more shallow and they'll get up
in three and two and three foot of water. But
after the spawn, I'll go back to thirty to eighty
ninety foot of water.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Okay, now we're in spawn right now, right Blue?

Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, well, pretty much everything is spawning right now. They're
not all going to go on at the same time,
but the whole month of June is spawned for all
the catfish.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Now, I'm addicted to rock when they're spawning. What are
your thoughts on that? You know, that's what I turn
it is rip rap. That's good for the cats. Yeah,
that's good for the channel cats.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
But you know, the bigger cats, it's kind of hard
to get up rock that big to let them get under.
You know, they like boat docks, our boat ramps. You
know there's voids underneath some of the boat boat ramps
anywhere we can get a large fish in the cavity
is where you're going to pretty much find them. You know,
a lot of guys are doing that noodling right now,

(23:30):
right and there's a lot of boxes they put out
specifically for that. I'm not against that stuff as long
as they abide by the rules that we have to
abide by. You know, a lot of guys will go
in there and catch them and take pictures and let
them go, and they go right back to where they're
supposed to be, right right. But rock is pretty good
for channel cat. Mud is a little bit better. Cavities

(23:51):
around big logs, things like that. It's good for the flatheads.
The blues are gonna you know, they find a good
rocks surface.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So how do you prepare your bait? How do you
cut it? And what tis what?

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Your favorite bait is skip jack by far okay, And
you know I've been doing this a long time, so
I'm going to say a big bait. You know, skipjack
can be up to four pounds. I'm gonna use half
of it at least, I'm gon throw it on there.
And that's another reason why you want to use you know,
six out way to get to the bottom of eighty
eighty foot with a two pound piece of skipjack on it.

(24:27):
But that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to catch the
biggest fish. That's what we're looking for is for a
big sixty eighty pounder to hit that big piece of bait.
But there's plenty of times I've had fifteen pounders smoke
a big head too, So it's it's and there's plenty
of times I've caught eighty pounders on a quarter size
piece of skip jack as well.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (24:47):
You really got to kind of feel them. What I
think the barometric pressure has a lot to do with
how they're feeding. You know, if the pressure is high,
you got high skies bluebird skuys is what I say.
I downsize my bait, go to something quarter size. If
everything's right and the pressure is low and it's overcast,
then I use the biggest baits I can find. And

(25:09):
you know, there's different presentations. We talked about dragging. There's
also suspending. That's kind of where I got my claim
to fame in YouTube gears was showing people how to suspend.
For these fish, word to suspend, and that's another thing.
You can do that on several different rigs, but the
Caroline rig is probably just the best one because it
doesn't you're not hitting the bottom. You're letting it hit

(25:30):
the bottom. But then you want to reel it back
up three or four cranks and put it in a
rod holder and just go with the flow. Or if
you don't have flow, you want to take your troller
motor and stay on a particular structure like a ledge
and just kind of move down that.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Structure, so you're basically just following the contour contours.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, a lot of people get mixed up. I hear that.
It kind of irks me, but it's it's from my
bast days and I can't remember who come up with
the terminology. But I hear a lot of cat fishing
that people be fishing around wood and they call it structure.
But structure is something that's either big man made like
a bridge or a natural contour and cover is the

(26:13):
wood and we yes. So, you know, some people kind
of get mixed up. Is if you don't know the terminology,
I guess you know you could be confused.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Do you on save rivers like the Tennessee or Ohio?
I know you fish rivers all over the country, Uh,
what really trips your trigger? In other words, are you
looking for channel bins? Are you looking for specific types
of drops with allegjation to what what would be your

(26:47):
number one turtle where you go, Oh, I'm gonna catch
them right here.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Well, ledges with wood on it, or ledges with some
kind of special structure. I've got a little piece of
water down on Nickajack that's on a ledge, but it
comes off of a twenty foot flat into sixty foot
of water on a ledge and got a bunch of
They sunk them barge and I blew up the bridge

(27:12):
and put a lot of bridge concrete pilings down there
because they built a new bridge and they had to
do something with it. And I've caught so many big
fish on spots like that. But then again, just a
bare nothing bank on the Ohio River that's say thirty
five foot deep, that has gravel on it, that's a
really good bank to fish. I mean it may not

(27:33):
have nothing on it, but it's consistent for a mile
and you can either drag your baits on the bottom
down through it, or you can suspend baits. And that's
where those fish they hang out this time of year
because of the muscle beds those gravel bars create, and
they're little bitty muscles. They're not the big fat muscles.
They're a little bitty I can't remember what you call them.
But they just eat them and absorb the meat out

(27:56):
of them and kick them out the other end.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, that's what why you see your lives well all that. Yeah, yeah,
a session like that. It's not unusual on a good
day to catch chervel fish over forty in certain waters.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
In certain waters, Yeah, you know two three is going
to be tops on Tennessee River. Ohio River not so much.
I mean, you're gonna have good days in bad days,
but it's nothing to catch fifteen twenty thirty fish in
the fifteen to twenty point range on the Hot River.
I mean, there's still a lot of good fish on

(28:35):
the Ohio River, but it's just a different animal than
the Tennessee River. The Tennessee River's got, you know, all
the skip jack and a lot of cover, a lot
of structure. The Ohio rivers kind of just and mostly
it's kind of like a bowl, gravel bowl in a
lot of places. The channel bends where it cuts the
river around, creates the deeper water and maybe some flow.

(28:57):
That's a lot of times you know you're cover will
kind of settle there in those spots is pretty good
and you can suspend anchor. You wouldn't want to drag
through it because it is a pain to get hung up,
and you do get hung up. But they got special
sinkers nowadays that they're using for dragging across cover and structure.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
And you mentioned that you use circle hooks exclusively when
you go the bigger fish. What's the minimum hook sides? You?

Speaker 3 (29:26):
I use number nine, but again again each brand has
their different number nine, but yeah, you want to use it.
The bigger fish are pretty much not going to do
any tap tap tapping, you know, and you know, hey,
I got a bite. You know, see little rod tip bending,
They're not going to do that. They're they're most likely
to take it and bend it and keep going into

(29:46):
drags and start screaming. You got to lift it up
by the rod holder and you got it, But you
don't want to jerk back on it. Do you want
to make through that rod is screaming drag and you
know he's hooked? Yes, sir, But you know there's been
there's been flatheads as a different kind of bite. You
can be in the same area with these big eighty
pound blues and their bite is going to be more

(30:08):
like like it's going to have a leaf on the
end of it. The rod is not going to tap
tap tap, but it's just gonna start slowly bending over
and then it's going to start peeling drag. So sometimes
you know, you think you got a channel cat working
it and ends up being a seventy pound flathead. So uh,
that's and then you know the flatheads and if the
if the flatheads are really popular, like in the Tennessee River,

(30:31):
you don't need live bait for them. They'll hit fresh
cut bait. But somewhere like the Ohio River and some
of these smaller rivers around the country that don't have
a lot of forged fish, you might do well a
lot better with live bait. Bluegill, creep creep chubs, Yeah,

(30:54):
shed it's hard to keep alive, but if you well
at keeping them live in a live tank, then that's
probably your best bet. Yeah, and you got thread fin shad,
which is the smaller stuff, and you got the big
gizzard shads, So you know, you get a seventy pound
flat head and he's got a mouth the size of
a fire got a bucket. So you know, I've actually
caught forty pound flat heads with a ten pound flat

(31:15):
head stuck in his face, a ten pound channel cat
stuck in his face. You got kid, It was rotten, smelly.
I mean he'd been there for a while. I guess
he was hungry and hit my bait, but he would
have never swallowed it.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, well, flathead to me is an eight petch print field. Yeah,
I mean I put him right up there with a
big musk you or a big, big pike for example.
I mean those jokers there, they're prevent.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
And the powery they have when they're when, I mean
they're like a bulldozer. When you got one, you got
a sixty forty pound fish on, you know, when they
start moving up river in current, you know you got
a good one and they just they're just going slow, really,
but they got so much power. Yes, sure it's a
different fight than a sixty eighty blue cat. Blue cat's

(32:01):
gonna twist and yeah, flat ends are just swimming.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Well, it's all fun, all right, folks. Gotta go to
quick break here. This break is presented by SMI Marine.
Go see them. It'll take great car of you. StarCraft pontoons,
falcon bass boats, low aluminum boats, and they do take
boats in trade. So take a quick peek at them
on the internet, and remember you never get soaked by
my friends at SMI. All right, Steve, we talked a

(32:32):
little bit about anchoring for the big cats. What situation
do you use that for and what kind of area
and what kind of setup.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Well, sometimes that the anchor fish is going to be
a bigger fish if everything's right. I'm looking for again
deep water. It depends on the year and where we're fishing.
The deep water cover structure. You want to set up
just above where that fish is. I'd say, if you
coming up a ledge and you mark a log with

(33:02):
a fish on it, you want to go up above
it and anchor your boat about one hundred feet. You
don't want to throw over top of it. Accidentally throw
over top of it. But if that that fish will
get a scent from that bait as soon as it
hits the water, and if it's a little bit before
the structure you're fishing, then he's going to come out
and really nail it. That's one of things I would

(33:25):
really look at is specific areas. I know one area
like down on Gunnersville Lake that I fish that's twenty
five foot deep all around for miles, but there's one
little hole that is only twenty seven foot deep and
I can sit on anchor that right there, and that
those fish, I don't know what it is they like
about that extra two foot, but they'll they'll come in

(33:47):
and get that. But they you know, the fish use
these ledges kind of like as migration or roadways themselves
in and out of creeks. You know, a creek mouth
that will open up, they'll use the ledges that for
navigation purposes as well. So if you can intercept them
at these particular spots, you're gonna do well.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Do you fish the creek mouse on the rivers much
at any time of year?

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, wintertime's pretty good. Yeah, in wintertime that's all the
shad and stuff kind of congregate up in there. Uh.
Springtime is pretty good too. All the fish are migrating
up river no matter what they're doing in the springtime,
it's just in their nature to start moving to the
pre spawn areas. Yep. Like white bash, skip jack, they

(34:34):
all head up river. Catfish is no different. They may
stop along the way, but they'll be finding areas to spawn.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Damn structures up near the dams, and talk about that
a little.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Bit where there's just a lot of rock and cavities
and there is some danger up around the long Oh. Yes,
you know they got turbulent water. But if the water
is not you know, you can get around the hydros
and it's still turbulent, but it's it's manageable, you know,
you get in the faster word. He may want to
go a technique called bumping, and that's putting a sinker
on and letting it hit the bottom and then just

(35:08):
let it bounce back on the bottom. For you know what,
my reels holds four hundred feet the line, I'll bounce
back four hundred feet. Don't get a bite. I'd come
back and do it again. But there's just all kinds
of structure and cover up around those dams, and the
dams attract bait, which comes in. Your predators comes to
catch the bait. So you've got stripers, catfish.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Everything, everything, Yes, sir, All right, folks, here in a
few moments, we're going to talk to one of Steve's friends, who,
like Steve, is very passionate about these big fish and
the conservation of fish. His name is Justin Browning, and
we're going to talk about some in depth discoveries that

(35:51):
he's made about some violations that are really horrible and
it's depleted the big fish in Ohio River in a
big way. You mentioned this, Steve, the Ohio at the
river was when you were fishing at early on in
the nineties and early two thousands.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yeah, there just needs to be some better regulations for
the bigger trophy catfish to survive if you want your grandkids.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
To catch them, that's right. It is about the grandkids
at this point for most of us. All right, folks,
we'll be back after the break. The break is presented
by Paul Thomas at Monsel Properties Heart Realty. Check them
out mop h A r T Realty dot com. All right, Steve,
we've got a gentleman here on the line. His name's

(36:37):
Justin Browning. He's a good friend of yours, and you
guys share a passion about these big fish, what it
takes to protect them, and some of the abuses that
are occurring.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah, that's why I wanted to bring Justin on. He's
very knowledgeable and he keeps track of the pay legs
and what's going on, and some of the statistics that
I seen him posting a couple of weeks ago is
kind of what made need want to get a hold
of you and say, hey, can you share this because
they say it's a ridiculous what the the pay legs
and the commercial guys are doing to our natural waterway fish. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
And you know, I want to make a statement here
justin if you don't mind, and welcome aboard. By the way, uh,
the commercialization of these fish actually goes against the North
American wildlife model. Let me give an example. You can't
go out here and catch turtles and sell them to

(37:32):
a pet store. You know, they outlawed market hunting for
ducks way back when. And yet in this modern day
and age, when catfish are becoming one of the top
fish that people like to pursue, and when they really
like to pursue them for some spoke value, you know,
you guys, release your fish. These commercial guys and not all,

(37:54):
not all pay lakes are bad and justin, I know
you're going to speak to that, but I think we're
definitely had a for the future of the sport that
there's got to be some really strict regulation and most importantly,
some down and dirty enforcement. Now, Kentucky fishing, well, I've
made a couple of big busts here in the last
couple of years, and I applaud them for that. They put

(38:15):
a lot of effort into it. I think they cited
twenty three out of sixty something pay legs as they investigated.
But a lot of our fish, Kentucky fish out of
Ohio River for example, ended up in Ohio in those
pay lakes. And there's a story there that you want
to tell justin so rock on buddy, welcome aboard.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
All right, thank you, Yeah, I mean it's you know,
Kentucky can only con you know, the regulation that we
got in for the seven hundred and fifty pounds per
trophy fish per surface acre that only applies to Kentucky.
And the difference between Kentucky and Ohio is as far

(39:00):
as being able to regulate paylas is right now in
the state of Ohio, which and we're working to get
this change. We're working to put Ohio in a category
where you know, we want to know who has jurisdictions
over the pay lax because right now we have no

(39:20):
answers to who as jurisdiction over who could regulate the
pay les the department of that department or the Fish
and Wildlife say it's in the agricultural sayand apartment, and
Agricultural says, no, they're not over it. It's in the
DNR hands. Well, so the only thing we've been able

(39:43):
to come up with and get from them so far
is that it's a small business that fell through the
cracks and it's unregulated. They can't come up with another
business out there that's not under the jurisdiction of anybody
except for Pale. So right now we're trying to get

(40:03):
a bill passed and uh actually we're getting ready to
have it written and uh trying to get a passed
on at least knowing who is going to be over
pay Lakes because in the state of Kentucky, they sell
a permit which gives uh Kentucky Fish and Wildlife the
right to regulate pay Lakes, which we don't have that

(40:28):
in Indiana. We don't have that in Ohio, and we
don't have that in West Virginia. Uh.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Unfortunately, they're getting their fished from our waters and violating
the laws. Got many fishes correct.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Yeah, So, uh, it's it's it's just a mess, and
it's uh it's you know, it's something that really, really
really has has been spreading and growing, you know, over
the years, and it's it's it's so bad now that
you know, they've wiped the upper portions of the Ohio
I mean it's it's bad, the upper portions of Ohio

(41:03):
all the way to West Virginia water. Uh what West
Virginia line is, Uh, it gets it's got worse and
worse every year, and it's to the point now where
it's it's not hardly worth fishing at all. Uh thirty
forty pounds wins most tournaments up there, h five fish,
and it's just it's just not hardly worth fishing.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Hey, justin, w' you share? Justin? Won't you share real quick?
The post you made the other day there was like
four pay legs that you had mentioned and the amount
of fish that they had stopped that. Share that with
with Jim, please, okay?

Speaker 4 (41:41):
So I, uh me and a buddy was sitting down
and uh we was going through uh four four ays,
not not necessarily all of them was the you know,
like have heavy hitters, but uh. Two of them are
owned by the same guy, which is a huge player

(42:03):
in this. I mean he is pretty much the grand
poobah of all this. So one of the pay legs
was Cat Fisherman's Paradise two. One of them is catfisher
Paradise Extreme, another one is cast Away, and another one is.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Windmill.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Which all of these are life and commercial fishermen out
of the state of Kentucky and Illinois.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
So just.

Speaker 4 (42:35):
And CP two, which is we caught CP two, it's
Cat Fisherman's Paradise two and Extreme are owned by James Reed.
So just these two pay legs from through from from
February through May twenty third, they have stocked. At Cat
Fisherman's Paradise he had already stocked fifty six thousand towns,

(42:57):
and at Paradise Extreme he had already stocked forty three
thousand pounds. At cast Away he had already stocked twenty
six thousand, one hundred and thirty and at Windmill he
had already stocked forty four thousand and three hundred pounds.
So that's over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in

(43:17):
four paylates. Now, since that post has been posted, there's
another posted, almost thirty thousand pounds that's been added just
since that post was posted on May twenty third, and
that's just four pyles out of one hundred.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
That explains to you, you know that we got that
many fish come out of our natural waters, our waterways.
But what do you think is going to happen next
two or three months? Those fish that they just stopped
are going to die in those pay legs from being
caught so many times, and they put chemicals in the
lakes to keep the grass and stuff down. They put
that many fish in the lake, they're going to die,

(43:58):
but they the cat fit, the still want to be
in business. So what they do They go back out
and replenish it again. So there's gonna be another one
hundred and sixty pounds of fish this year.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
So well, just here, here's here's something important. You and
I talked about this a little bit some folks about
your background and why you're so incensed about it, because
you actually have Peyleke experience in your past and there
was a big change happened from the paylecks back in
the day. What folks do that so they can understand

(44:32):
that they're raping these upper level fish that are forty
to fifty Who knows how some of these bigger giant
catfish sixty to eighty pounds are I mean the menber
of the thirty years, I can tell you that.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
So.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
My background is I grew up at a peyleck that
my family owned, and I mean it was honestly the
some of the best days they ever had in my life.
I thought it was the coolest thing I was young. Uh,
you know, but back then it was a little different
because most of the pay legs back then, and we're

(45:11):
talking late eighties, early early early nineties, uh was channel
cat only. Uh. Most of them stocked channel cat farm
raised channel cat. They'd come in every week with a load.
You know, people would catch them, they put them on
a stringer, they'd take them home, clean them. I mean,
and you know that's what everybody knew pay legs was.

(45:32):
I mean, there was a few that would, you know,
maybe stop three to five hundred pounds of flathead the year.
Cirly any of them stocked blues. If they did stop blues,
it was rare just because they everybody back then, you know,
knew the blues as soon as you put them in.
They were dead within especially in the summertime, within a
couple of days. Most of the time that when they

(45:53):
stopped these fish. Nowadays you only got about two weeks
at best and so but back then, you know, it
was mostly farm raised channel cap And as the years
went on, it got to where you've seen more and
more people start stocking bigger fish. Especially when the owner

(46:15):
of one of the pay lefs I mentioned earlier, he
really started getting everybody involved. He had a pay leck
down in Bellprie, Ohio, and he's really there was another
guy named Randy Riley Hill and clear Water pay Les.
He him and uh James Reed, they was the ones

(46:38):
that pretty much started it all. I mean they started
to transition to where you know, the older pay lecks.
If you didn't start stocking big fish, they couldn't make
a living. They had to change up. It wasn't getting
no business. It went from you know, some older people
bringing you know, family atmosphere the paylecks was, you know,
went from a family atmosphere to it was all about

(47:01):
the gambling. It turned into all gambling, the biggest fish slots.
I mean, it was tournaments every you know, every couple
of nights. I mean, it just went from a family
you know, out catching you know, dinner for the weekend,
to you know, gambling and nothing but big fish and
these you know, the pay lakes that didn't switch over.

(47:23):
They couldn't survive, they couldn't make it. And when I
started seeing the switch over and I started seeing them
stock these fish, and I seen him roll up a
day or two later, it just made me sick. I mean,
I love catching catfish. I love to see it. I
love everything about them. This is something I could talk
about for, you know, hours upon hours because you know,

(47:47):
I guess you know, it means so much to me
about it. But so when I started seeing them fish
roll up dead, I was like, man, I can't be
a part of this, this thing, what this is not right?
And I knew it a young age it wasn't And
every since then, you know, it got to where I
didn't want nothing to do with it. I fought against

(48:07):
it ever since. I mean, and I went from you know,
going to Kentucky, we would we would. I rode with
commercial fishermen down to Arkansas, picked up farm raised channel cats,
come back through Grand Rivers, stopped at Lake City Fish House.
This is twenty five years ago, picked up a load
of blues and flatheads and come drove right back to
the pail, like and stop them, you know I. And

(48:29):
it got to where, you know, I was like, man,
I just you know, I thought it was the coolest
thing in the world until I actually seen and was
old enough to comprehend what was really going on with
the fish. And I knew then I didn't want nothing
to do with it.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
All right, justin I got to go on news break.
Coming back from break, I want you to talk about
the documentation you've got about the tournaments over a fifteen
year span, which are really revealing and explains exactly what
is happening because they're depleting this valuable natural resource and
it's those fish belong to the people. They don't bow

(49:06):
on these pay late guys. I just I'm against the
commercialization on that regard. I'm not against commercial netting per se,
for you know, where they sell fish to the market
and what have you, but putting them in a pay
late to die, these giant catfish, I don't like it.
I'm against it. They should have to pay for those fish.
They ought to be farm raised themselves, which obviously they

(49:28):
won't do it because it takes too long. That's that's
where the rubber meets the road. All right, I gotta
go break. This break is presented by SMI Marine. They're
eleven foreigner Westport Road will sim they'll take great care
of all your boating needs. And remember you never get
soaked at sm I justin Uh, we weren't made clear.
We're not anti pay lake. Okay, Uh yeah, it's the

(49:53):
right and wrong way to do things. And and Ohio
has continually been the problem place in a big way. However,
as I mentioned earlier, there was twenty three I believe
it's an accurate number of citations to pay legs out of
the sixty something that they checked here in Kentucky. And
so that's a problem. But to the point of the

(50:15):
depletion of the resource and how far the Ohio River
has slipped in the big fish production category. By that,
I mean, like Steve Benz, there's plenty of blue cat
in there, but the big ones. Uh uh. They gone
talk about that tournament and the way the numbers have

(50:36):
slid over that fifteen year period.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
So Indiana have a tournament they've had. I think this
will be the fifteenth year on the Ohio River, same pool,
same weekend, every single year. It's called the Ohio Valley
River Cats Tournament. It started think the first year had

(51:02):
I don't know, fifty sixty seventy boats maybe I don't
know the exact number. But within fifteen years they grew
that tournament. Every year it's had one hundred and seventy
to one hundred and eighty for the last several, you know,
probably ten years of it. And then last year they
hit two hundred. They had just over two hundred boats

(51:25):
with you know, you figured two hundred boats, nine rods,
you're alloted to fish in the water at one time,
with three anglers on each boat. Big fish in that
tournament last year was thirty five pounds. That's a two
day tournament. So you had roll over eighteen hundred lines

(51:47):
in the water and the biggest fish anybody could come
up with, and a two day tournament was thirty five pounds.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
And and and the way tournaments has just been off
the chart.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Yeah, it declined everything. I mean, it's a straight arrow
down and if you took it, if you made a
barograph that it would literally it's fall far faster than
the stock market. I mean it's dropped completely. I mean
you could see a decline over the fifteen years. Every
single year it's lower lower, lower lower. And we we

(52:27):
brought that up with with with Kentucky dn R, but
they they would not use it in their in their
they said that the numbers were skewed and uh, you know,
they just didn't want to look at it. We also
had some uh we also had results from all the
way back to two thousand and six with the dirt

(52:49):
from the dirt Hat tournaments which was down in Mount Vernon, Paducah,
and I mean even they showed a steep decline and uh,
they just uh, I mean the informations out there, the
resources or the resource it shows a huge decline in

(53:10):
every ounce of research we've we've got information we've got
I mean through all the tournament data through Ohio has
done a couple of studies. I mean even the uh
commercial fishing reports we have filed. We filed open records
request on several commercial fishing reports, one of them which

(53:32):
owned one of the pay legs that was on what
I was tony about earlier. We pulled his and he
would get on Facebook and show him stocking every every
every week, you know, two or three times a week
he'd come in with you know, we see him on
the river pool net and then he do a video
that night saying, hey, I just filed for eleven hundred
pounds or I stopped sixteen six hundred pounds or five

(53:55):
hundred and fifty pounds, you know, whatever he got from
his net that day that he ran and he uh
we pulled his commercial fishing reports and he it showed
six hundred pounds for the whole year. I mean it's
a little.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Disparity there, Yeah, a little disparity, A big problem. All right,
I gotta go to the news break. Coming back from break,
I'm gonna talk to you all about you know what has
been done. You all were instrumental on getting some pretty
good regulations passed, uh and fishing wilelife did respond. I
got to give him kudos for that. But the problem
has been in the enforcement and the number of people

(54:30):
that are violate and violating in a big way. All right, folks,
gotta go to break. It's presented by most Old Properties
Art Realty. Check out the listenings. M O P H
A R T realt dot com. Dustin you know we've
been discussing some of those things. I do think it's
appropriate that we talk about how Kentucky fishing whileife did

(54:52):
respond and the limits that they have imposed. It's supposed
to stop some of this rape of the resource.

Speaker 5 (55:02):
Yeah, you know, I got to say, there is some
great conservation officers out there, and that's you know, that's
throughout all the tri States.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
I mean, Kentucky has some really great conservation officers. I've
met some talk to them. I've never met one on
the water or in the field that didn't basically say
they agree with everything we're saying. You know. Uh So
with that said, I really believe you know that enforcement, uh,

(55:39):
the enforcement issue we have, it's not on the backs
of the conservation officers. They're doing their job. Ah, it
goes higher into the department. And I've had conservation officers
from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio all say, you know that
a lot of their hands are tied. You know, they

(56:01):
can only do what they're allowed to do and the department,
they most of them have told me they feel that
the department does not have their back on this, and uh,
I believe them, you know, I mean, I've never I've
yet to meet a conservation officer out of any of

(56:21):
the three states, and I've worked with several of them
that has not been one hundred percent on basically on
our side and tell us this is an absolute disgrace
what's going on. So, you know, uh, Kentucky did step
up and give us some regulations. They're not everything we want,

(56:43):
but they you know, we've came up. In my opinion,
we ain't got what we want, but we've come a
long way. And just like with this show here, the
more we get this out and let people know what's happening,
because a lot of people don't know. They just it's
not that they're ignorant, it's that they just don't know.

(57:05):
I talk to a lot of people that fish pay
Lakes and they tell me, man, we thought these was
farm raised fish. You know what I mean, they have
They just don't know. So I think, you know, the
more we can get it out there and the more
we can talk about it and let people know what's
going on, and the better off we are. And I
think that that's what's really moved us along throughout you know,

(57:29):
the last you know, ten to fifteen years. I mean,
this has been going on a while, and we've made
steps and we've got a few regulations. It's not everything
we want, but you know, you ain't gonna it ain't
gonna happen overnight.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Just you know, let's talk about you Ohio River is
a perfect example because it is what we big resources
obviously for these jenn catfish. Talk about West Virginia porson
the river, talk about how the river, then talk about
the main stem all the way down to the Mississippi

(58:04):
because a lot of those states, well you and I
talked about this where their regulations don't even allow it.
Uh yeah, and it's revealing because in those areas where
they don't allow this, there's a whole lot better fishing.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
That's that's that's that's that's exactly right. And you know,
uh so in our area, there's always been some commercial
fishing on the Ohio River. There's it has It's been
around for one hundred years. And that's we don't want
to stop the guys going out there and and and
given to the restaurants, uh getting to the you know,
the the mom and pop uh fish markets. That's not

(58:48):
what we're after. We are wanting to stop, you know,
the fish going to the pay Lakes. It's it's it's
absolutely waste and that's what we're after. So in West Virginia, Uh,
we didn't have a problem with merct fishing up here. Huh.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I don't want to interrupt, but when you say that's
who you're after, you're after because these giant fish don't
live and nobody eats them. They going there the resource
it's it's a money pit for the pelet caller, right,
and it's and it's a sacrilegi to me to the
sports fisherman who released these huge fish there not fifty

(59:26):
eat so but go ahead.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
You know, you can't take deer from the public herd
and put them in a high fence hunt there and
the towards people shoot them. That's against the law. It's
just like going to you know, state forest and chopping
firewood to sell. You can't do that. And this is
the only thing out there that I can come up
with that that they allow us to happen to. I
can't find any other animal fish, there's nothing else out

(59:56):
there that we sat down and come up tried to
come up with an and we just can't find anything
that they allowed us to happen to besides the catfish,
it's a disgrace. But so going back to West Virginia said,
like West Virginia, they had a huge problem with commercial fishing.
And the guy I mentioned earlier on one of the payloafs,

(01:00:18):
he had a pay lake in Belfry, Ohio. Well it
got it got so bad that West Virginia pretty much
they banned it in two thousand and six. They said,
we're doing a way, We're not going to regulate it,
we're doing away with it, and they banned commercial fishing
at one hundred percent in West Virginia. So what that
did was he moved his pay lakes here are up

(01:00:41):
you know, up above north of Cincinnati, and he started
fishing the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. So and
he wiped it out. I mean he he done a
number on it. And on the upper pool of the
Market Pool that I fished, he absolutely destroyed it. I mean,
single hand only he wiped it out. And so you

(01:01:07):
can go to West Virginia where West Virginia starts, they
own all the river. So it don't matter what all
the other states do, they own it all. So when
you go to West Virginian fish the fish is so
much better. They didn't even have blue cats until the
states started stocking them. And once they and they started
stocking I think in two thousand and seven or two

(01:01:27):
thousand and eight, I can't remember, but it was once
they banned commercial fish and they started stocking blue cats. Well,
you can go up further this day, right now, and
the first pool you come to is shared with Kentucky.
Once you get above that pool, the fish is completely different.
One hundred percent. I think Steve can can bounce for this.

(01:01:49):
That pool is one hundred percent completely different than fishing
the pool under it that is shared with Kentucky waters.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Because yeah, that's that's flat hair. Wow, that's flatheads and
blues both. It's it's night and day and that accidentally
I caught the West Virginia state record one time up there,
but I had their own fishing license. But if I
had the place, if I wanted to fish on it,
on the conductor on up and that's where i'd be.

(01:02:17):
As as point was a point pleasant, West Virginia plant
gallaplus Ohio. That is a really got good fishery because
they're managing it properly, I think.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
Okay, yeah, Well and it's come back because you know,
at one time it got hit hard, it got cleaned,
it got cleaned out, and then once they banned commercial fishing,
I mean, within ten years, it was a completely different river.
They started stocking blue cats in it, the flatheads started
coming back. I mean, it's a completely different river than

(01:02:51):
than the pool below it, and and the other you know,
all the way down. It's just completely different. And I
mean it's it goes from you know, it goes to
show you that, you know, where there's not commercial fishing,
you can definitely tell see a difference. It don't think
of rocket science to see a difference, but it's you know,

(01:03:14):
it's and then you the farther down, you know, like
the Mississippi River. You know they talk about the Mississippi,
Well the Mississippi. The first dam on the Mississippi River
ain't until you get to Saint Louis, so you know
that are so it's you know what the commercial fishing
down the area takes a lot more to fish them
out because then fish constantly moved through multiple states. Ours

(01:03:37):
is you know, most of the river is bordered by Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio,
and West Virginia and Illinois, so them five states and
it's dammed up. Every every one sixty to ninety miles
there's a dam, and it's easy for them to commercial
fish then pools out because them this, they can only

(01:04:01):
move so far. So once they wipe one pool out,
they moved down to the next pool, then the next pool,
and then the next pool. And that's where that's where
they're at right now. They're they're down there, you know,
near the confluence of you know where the Cumberland River
comes in, Tennessee River. You got uh, you know, you
got the Ohio River, you got the Mississippi River all
coming together down there, and that's the mecca of the

(01:04:21):
commercial fishing world right now. Because they wiped I mean,
we've got a few stragglers left up here picking up scraps,
but mostly your heavy hitters are down river.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
And that's that's where there, that's where the state's got
the four over forty commercial guys too. And tell us
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Yeah, I'll tell you what, justin, justin, let me go
to break real quick, and we'll get to that right
after the break. Okay, this break is presented by s
M I Marine. Go see them and take great car
of you. Remember you never get soaked by my friends
at s M. I uh, Justin, Uh, Steve's got something

(01:05:00):
he wants to say. And I think it's really important
because legcate people in a big way about what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
See, well, just Justin, I think you had something to
do with this. But for the folks out there that's
listening to this, it's kind of hard to visualize what
we're talking about. But if you go to the Internet
and go to exposed exposingpaylegs dot com, you can get
some visual visualization of the amount of fish that they're stocking,

(01:05:30):
what it does to the fish. There's this all kinds
of information on there about studies and stuff that Justin
and a lot of other folks throughout the years have
come up with on this. So you know, for any
anybody that thinks, all it's just a catfish, really go
look at that and you can see like fifty or
sixty forty to fifty pound flatheads laying on a tarp

(01:05:51):
ready to go into Acre Payley to die, and the
same thing with blues and such. So, but I think
we were talking about the way the catfish have kind
of diminished down river. Can do they still are they
still abiden by that four over forty down there below Smithland.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Yeah, actually it's from Canleton down it's the four over
forty and uh so, most of the river is one
over thirty five until you get to the Canleton Dam.
From Canleton Dam down to the confluence of the Mississippi
or the confence, I confluence of the Ohio River where
it goes into the meets Mississippi, and it'll be four

(01:06:34):
over forty. That's only on the main stem. Now. It
used to be its tributaries too, but I think last
year it was that they changed that and now it
only applies to the main stem of the Ohio River,
which we you know, we're going to try to get
it all down to where it's all the same one

(01:06:55):
over thirty five, but right now they're still fighting us
over it. But basically what that means is you're allowed
one fish over thirty five inches blue, one blue, one flathead,
and channel cat has to be over twenty eight inches
in the four over forty. There's a select number of

(01:07:16):
I think he said it's fifteen permits now that they
allow for commercial guys. The four over forty is only
on commercial guys recreation anglers still have to abide by
the one over thirty five, but there's a fifteen permits
issued in Kentucky. I think he said there was eight issued,

(01:07:38):
but there's up to fifteen allowed that can take four
which has allowed four over forty inches and unlimited under,
so that means they can have, you know, a forty
inch fish is going to be around thirty five to
you know, I mean it varies, every fish is different,
but thirty five to forty pounds, so they can have

(01:08:00):
or thirty five to forty pounds or bigger fish and
then they can have as many under forty inches as
they want. There's no limit, and that's where we really
need to get that worked on, to get that down
because there's not many. There's not a lot left anymore,
especially in certain parts of the river over forty inches.

(01:08:22):
I mean there's well like last year, you know, the
biggest fish out of the tournament for a two day
tournament with two hundred boats to thirty five pounds. That
fish wasn't forty inches.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Well, guys, here this is my thought on all this,
and I've been involved with this with you fellas for
a long time, and it is readily apparent to me.
Let's give an example. There's a hell of a difference
between a commercial guy underneath forty being able to take
as many as he can in the rod Real guys,

(01:08:56):
and the rod Real guys and the guys paying the bills.
It's the average fisherman out here, by the license, paying
the catchcatfish that's paying the bills, not the pay lake boys,
not the commercial fishermen. I'm gonna take you a step
toward I think the answer to this, and it's one

(01:09:16):
I would hope the Commission would look at. They need
to stop out of state transportation of Kentucky fish because
all these problems revolved around these pay lakes in Ohio,
for example. Everyone knows what they're doing. It ain't like
it's a secret. To tell that website again so the listeners.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Can go to it. It's exposingpaylakes dot Com. And like
I say, there's a lot of information on every one
other thing i'd like to touch on. I know justice
it's gonna get his craw too. But a lot of
single anglers are selling these things to pay It's not
only the commercial guys out there. There's single anglers that
are taking advantage of these big fish selling to the payles.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
That has to well, sure, because there's money in it,
big money. And that's one of the points I'm making
that interstate transport, Interstate transport it needs to stop.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Or double them a trophy fish not able to take
them out of there. Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
So you know, my heart rides with the angler. I'm
not against commercial fishermen by it means, and I'm not
against them doing reasonable harvest. But as we've looked at
this through the years, with the statistics that you are naming,
and you guys are some of the best catfish anglers
in the country, I'll say that I'll brag on you

(01:10:37):
with no problem. And you see it. You're on the
water all the time. And where do you go to fish?

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Now? You go to Tennessee and justin you go to
West Virginia.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
Why because that's where big fish I'd like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
To stay real quick too. Okay, you know, I have
not got a problem with pay legs. Pay legs. You know,
everybody wants to say, well, you're you're you're picking on
the small business and the small This is not against
pay legs. Pay Les can survive on farm raise fish

(01:11:18):
like they did twenty years ago, thirty years ago, and
there's still some today that still stocking farm race fish
and still got a good business. Uh So it's not
No one wants to shut pay legs down, you know,
it's not. It's not the that's that's not what we want.
And you know, and and to be honest with you,

(01:11:39):
if all the pay lets had to go to farm
raised fish, you're going to create more drives in the
in the fifth farming world. So it's not like it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
And under these guidelines that exist in those limits, if
they're enforced, they can have big fish do big fish jackpot.
But the way they're doing now it's an abuse of
the resource. It really is. Guys, thanks much for being
on with us tonight. It's been very infrontive and I
hope the fishing public pays attention to this because it's

(01:12:13):
a tragedy. The commercialization of wildlife is wrong. All right, folks,
we gotta go justin. Thanks so much, Steve. It's always
great to have you on. You appreciate what you guys do.
That's a wrap for tonight. God bless everybody.