Toledo Bend is the cat's meow for big blue and flathead catfish
SHELBYVILLE -- I love this place. The air reeks of fish, and there is water just a stone's throw away. More importantly, the people here speak my language and share my passion for fat fish with big fins and long whiskers. If there is such a thing as a fishing man's fishing camp, this is as clear-cut an example as you'll find this side of the Louisiana border.
Located along the Texas shore at the northern reaches of Toledo Bend, Bill's Landing is a legendary catfish hub popular with trotliners and hand fishers alike. I've been coming here since the late 1980s. In looking back, I can recall only a few trips when I failed to leave with a big cooler packed so full of succulent catfish fillets that it took two men to carry it.
We caught and released bream from daylight to dark on those "other" trips, then toted a few dozen of the big ones back to the fish cleaning table. There, Bill Wilson placed them in a large electric tumbler made from mesh wire and hit the juice. Powered up, the tumbler would spin tight circles and rake the scales off a mess of bream lickety-split.
Wilson used to own the joint. He's gone now, but his memory lives on at a camp name known by anglers from Texas to Maine and beyond.
I've logged a passel of fond memories at Bill's. One of my favorites dates back to 1989, when my old friend Lee Wayne Cooper and I set up camp near a plastic Coke bottle Wilson had anchored a few days before. Beneath the bottle was a main lake ridge crawling so thick with spawning bream that we caught one on every drop.
Each time we boated a hand-size fish, it went in a wire fish basket I had tied to the side of my jon boat. Once shoved through the retractable lid, the fish was there for safe keeping. Or so we thought.
Midway through the morning, I decided to raise the basket to admire our catch. Thinking we probably had about 50 big redears and bluegills inside, I was shocked to find only two.
"What the hell, Matthew?" shrieked Cooper, chugging a cowboy cold Old Milwaukee. "What happened to all our brimmies."
Closer examination revealed a gaping hole in the bottom of the basket. Evidently, our fish escaped as quickly as they went in.
Cooper and I began our day all over. We still managed to catch a mess of fish, but the second bunch didn't come nearly as easy as the first.
Shady McGuire and his 9-year-old son, Walker, got a kick out of hearing that tale. I told it as we eased our way out of Tenaha Creek en route to a makeshift boat landing on the south side of Duncan Island. We had a 5 p.m. date with Charlie Shively.
Shively and wife, Rhonda, began visiting Bill's long before me. Originally from Ohio, the couple liked the place so much that they decided to buy it in 1990. They've been there ever since, catching bream and crappie and running trotlines amid what are arguably some the most robust blue and flathead catfish waters in the entire South.
"What is so amazing is that it seems like the fishing just keeps getting better with age, especially for the blue cat," Shively said. "It's full of them."
To put the quality of Toledo Bend's catfish fishery in perspective, consider the staggering number of whiskered fish that cross the couple's cleaning table each year. Keep in mind that T-Bend spans 181,000 acres, and that Bill's is only one of dozens of lakeside businesses on the Texas and Louisiana sides. Also remember that commercial netters in Louisiana haul tons of catfish out of the lake each year.
At one time the Shively's were cleaning as much as 20,000-30,000 pounds of catfish annually for their customers. On several occasions they have cleaned as much as 1,200 pounds of fish in a single day.
They are speedy, too. On a weekend earlier this year I watched them dice up a 35-pound blue cat in about three minutes.
And the Shively's aren't nearly as fast at dicing as they used to be. Time has taken its toll. Too many hours working a fillet knife caused Rhonda to develop carpal tunnel syndrome a few years ago. Charlie, 54, has a bad back. He says he's getting old. My guess is he wrestled with one too many 70-pound catfish.
"We've slowed down a lot," Charlie said. "We only clean fish for our longtime customers now."
Each time I visit Bill's, I feel lucky to be among that crowd. I'm big on catching catfish, not so big on cleaning them, particularly after a respectable meat run like the one we made earlier this year.
Experience has made Shively a good judge of trotline hauls. He estimates we removed about 225 pounds of catfish from our sets. Added to the 100-125 pounds caught the morning before, McGuire and I split about 80 pounds of fillets for the freezer. Just about all of our fish came on cut perch. Bream heads with the hook threaded through the eyes produced most of the takers.
"That really wasn't that good for that many hooks, probably about average or a little below," Shively said. "There are times when you will catch double that. These fish really get fired up when the lake goes on a rise."
A significant rise would be a blessing about now. As is the case on many Texas lakes, the water level on T-Bend is well below normal (7.14 feet as of Wednesday). It is so low, in fact, that launching can be a hassle at some ramps.
Shively's ramp is usable but just barely. He is currently advising his customers to unload jon boats (using a 4X4) off a sandy point about a mile north of his facility. Getting there means navigating a dirt road that winds across dry flats and shallow ridges normally flooded by 4-5 feet of water.
Once in the water, the fun starts. You basically launch into what looks like a pin cushion of stumps, all of them petrified from decades spent beneath the surface.
Navigating here can be tricky right now. The only way to get around is to bump and bang your way through the stump fields at idle speed -- or sweet talk Shively into leading you out to the 1,000-yard cut or Sabine River by way of a narrow roadbed that was there long before the lake filled. The road is marked with flagging but can be difficult to follow at times. Get off to either side and you are sure to tag something or run aground. We marked the trail using a hand-held GPS unit and had no problems.
Choosing the best spots to make trotline sets can be a crap shoot at times, mainly because everything looks so good. The best sets are usually made in relation to structure, such as a creek, slough, drain or the main river channel.
We placed our sets adjacent to some old sloughs off the 1,000-yard cut. The water depth along the edge was about 5 feet deep, 12 feet in the drain itself.
Pete and Matt Thompson of Lufkin found several sweet spots along the Sabine River the same weekend we visited. The Thompson's caught several blues in excess of 50 pounds and one flathead that weighed 62. All of the big fish were released alive.
As a rule, fish 30 pounds or less make the best table fare. Cats in the 5-15 pound range are ideal. They also the most plentiful. There are armies of them out there.
To contact Bill's Landing, call 936-368-2542.
Matt Williams' email address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.
Trotline How-To: Quality gear is a must
It is wise to gain every advantage possible when trotlining in big water known for growing monster cats. Savvy linesmen don't mind dumping some money into building a quality line.
Some hardcore trotliners prefer a No. 96 or No. 120 main line, which equates to roughly 1,000-pound test. In most cases, a No. 72 (600 pound test) main line is sufficient for holding a fat cat weighing upwards of 50 pounds, provided the rest of the line is outfitted properly.
A swivel that will hold up to some pressure is a key ingredient of a quality trotline. The swivel is the pivot point between the main line and hook staging. The swivel helps prevent twisting If the swivel gives, a big fish will be gone in a flash.
A 225-pound test, 2/0 nickel Roscoe swivel is tough to beat. It is a good idea to place each swivel 5-6 feet apart to allow plenty of room for landing big fish. Hook stagings should be made from No. 18 tarred nylon.
A No. 4 or 5 Mustad circle hook is a great choice for cut bait. A No.10-12 is the top choice for live bait. The circle hooks are manufactured with a unique bend that acts as a natural "keeper" to help prevent hooked fish from shaking or tearing loose.
All trotlines must be marked gear tags containing the owner's name, address and the date set out.
-- MATT WILLIAMS
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