We anchored at the head (upstream end) of major shallow flats and used the current to drift baits over those flats. No need for a lighted float. Just keep your reel in freespool and monitor the drifting float with your fingers as it moves downriver. You can easily feel a fish take the bait. We could easily drift baits for more than 100 yards downriver before reeling in and beginning again. Set the bait below the float so it just bumps bottom most of the time. If the depth changes and the bait drags or floats a foot or so above bottom, cats will still take it. The float not only keeps the bait moving but also keeps it from snagging.

Those flats held a lot of fish at night, and they still do. The surprise was how many pushed right up against lipped shorelines. It seemed like the action peaked in the hours before sunrise, although we also caught fish along those edges during the day. Twenty-pound fish in just a foot or two of water. About 1988, we shot TV shows on consecutive early mornings by fishing from shore on spots like this. I shot one show with Toad, the other with Englishman Duncan Kay. The portion of the filming where Toad and I stood in hip boots drifting baits downriver along those lipped shorelines was never shown, although the other action eventually made it into some of our early videos.

You know, that style of fishing isn’t unlike the fishing that transpires this time of year on major river systems like the Mississippi, where falling water levels make it possible to anchor or wade and drift floats over the shallow portions of sand- and gravel bars on or near wing dams. Cats push up onto these flats to feed at night, and it isn’t unusual to catch 50 fish a night, though rare to get a fish surpassing 10 pounds. The best wing dams seem to be on inside riverbends, although that isn’t a hard rule. The most popular baits are grasshoppers, nightcrawlers, and dipbaits. Most of this is close-range fishing and anglers seem to prefer lighted floats, though the times I’ve fished this pattern, I didn’t find them necessary.

If there’s a class of water where an angler has a fair shot at bigger channel cats at night, it’s on bodies of water that have a good population of flathead cats in conjunction with channel cats, just the situation we were fishing the night old Bojangles The Bandit wandered into camp. Because of their aggressive predatory nature, flatheads rule these waters, moving all but the biggest channel cats out of primary feeding areas. So, when flatheads feed in daytime during prespawn in May and early June, they hold near large snags and move channel cats into snags on river flats.

Once summer arrives, flatheads feed mainly after dark, prowling areas with large snags in deeper river holes. Most average-sized channel cats do much of their feeding during the morning, after flatheads stop feeding and hole up for the day. Because only the largest channel cats aren’t intimidated by flatheads, only the largest prowl right along with the flatheads after sundown.

After dark on these waters, I target large channel cats by fishing with deadbait, which flatheads tend to ignore in favor of livebait, the livelier the better. Actually, big channel cats will take either livebait or deadbait, but in my estimation, they tend to prefer fresh cutbait. A typical good set would be with a freshly killed shad or, on the rivers I usually fish, a freshly killed sucker about 8 inches long. I cut off the head and snip off the tail (so the bait casts well and lays well in current) and make a series of cuts to the backbone on one side of the bait.

Using a hook like a 3/0 Mustad 92671 or Eagle Claw 84, I slip the hook through the tail-end of the bait, leaving the hook point exposed. I typically use a simple set rig consisting of a bell sinker (sliding on my mainline) slid right up to the bait. No need for a leader between the hook and sinker. Then I set the reel on freespool with the clicker on and put the rod in a rod holder. Of course, you can get by with a forked stick.

The main mistake anglers make at night is to let cutbait sit too long without tending it. You know how it goes. You set several lines as the sun goes down. Nothing happens for a half hour—so you let the lines sit. After all, they haven’t been hit. The key is to fish cutbaits aggressively. Let a bait sit for 20 minutes, then reel it in and freshen it up.

Cutbaits work because they exude juices (blood and oil) that attract cats. Freshen the bait (reactivate it) by making a series of cuts on the other side of the bait, then cast to a different spot. Twenty minutes later, reel in the bait and step on it to squash it a bit, reactivating it again. Then make another cast. It’s unusual to go an hour in early evening without getting bit. By then it’s time to flip that old bait into the woods for the coons, and put on a fresh bait.