Fishing with my Mico- Light Spinning Rod to Land Catfish!!

For those of you who haven’t try fishing a microlight spinning rod then you are missing out on some fantastic ultra-light action. I have been using these type of rods for years, when I use them to land crappie and bluegill some ten years ago. Of course, that was before I started using the fly rod, which all you know has taken precedence over all my other reels and rods.

I have to admit there are times though that I stray away from the fly rod, and this past week was one of those times. I decided to use my microlight spinning rods to go after some of the channel and blue catfish on Smith my home lake. Fishing the rock walls during the late summer and into the fall can be an excellent time to land some quality catfish. The catfish on Smith tend to feed early and late in the evening, so my trip this past week was a daylight outing fishing nothing but the rock walls tight-lining at depths of 20 to 30 feet down.

Find a rock wall like the one in the above image and most of the time you find catfish, especially if the wall has an overhanging muscadine vine near it, the catfish devour those when they are in season.

A healthy channel cat using my 7 ½ ft. microlight.

My 7 ½ ft. microlight spinning rod paired with the Pflueger President XT spinning reel which spools 4 to 6 lb. test line. Today I was using my 6 lb. test extra spool which came with the reel. The balance on this combo parallels the balance I go for on my fly rod combos, super light, and sensitive.

Gulp catfish chunks split into and served up on a size 12 true turn hook; I know most everyone fishes for catfish using heavier equipment, but I prefer the challenge and fight that this fish will give one using an inferior combo and in this case the microlight works to perfection for me. In fact, it is the closest I can get to my fly rod on trips like today.

Every once in awhile a spot will nail the gulp chunk which is another challenge for the microlight that it passes. I ended the morning with 5 catfish all basically the same size as my post image and the one spot. The spot got its freedom, but the catfish were not so lucky. My wife and I seldom eat fried meals, but we make an exception when it comes to fresh catfish fillets.