BY BOB HOOD

Special to the Star-Telegram

Some anglers dream of making a record-setting catch and having their names inked into the Texas Fish Records book.

Twelve-year-old Lane Ferguson of Fort Worth not only has experienced that but has received seven awards for catching a monster blue catfish at Lake Worth just before Christmas, which was certified by the Texas Parks and Wildlife recently.

On Dec. 23, the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw middle school student caught a blue catfish weighing 66.28 pounds on a shad caught in a cast net by his father, professional catfishing guide Chad Ferguson of North Texas Catfishing Guide Service.

The catch beat the former Lake Worth record blue catfish of 55 pounds caught on Dec. 22, 2001, by Larry Farmer. A blue catfish weighing 72 pounds also was caught at Lake Worth in December but it was not certified as a record because two anglers shared their efforts in catching and landing the fish.

“I have had Lane fishing ever since he was big enough to walk,” Chad Ferguson said. “He is definitely an outdoors person, fishing or hunting. He can use any type of rod and reel, from bait casters to spinning and spin casting gear. He caught the big one at Lake Worth in about 22-feet deep water on cut shad and it took him about 10 minutes to get it to the boat. We got it all on video.

“We tried three different ledges, and Lane hooked into the big fish on the third ledge. I wasn’t sure my scales were exact, so we loaded up and went to another place that had certified scales to see if it beat the Lake Worth record, which it did. That was the only fish we caught that day but it was the one we were hoping to catch.”

Ferguson said he knew his son had hooked a possible lake record as soon as he set the hook. “When he began fighting it, I pulled up the anchor and started reeling the other rods in,” Ferguson said. “It was pretty windy and the fish began moving the boat across the water. I finally was able to net the fish and we took it to have it weighed on other scales, then brought it back to Lake Worth and released it.”

Lake Worth is one of the oldest man-made reservoirs in Texas. It was impounded in 1914 on the West Fork of the Trinity River by the city of Fort Worth for water-use purposes. But it has undergone siltation problems over the years that have limited its deepest depths to about 20 feet or lower.

A state fish hatchery used to be nearby on the 3,489-surface-acre reservoir but has since only been occupied by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries research facility.

Lake Worth also gained national attention in the 1960s and years afterward when individuals reported sightings of a goat-fish-man-like creature later tabbed as the “Lake Worth Monster.” The lake also has had reported sightings of alligators and other interesting creatures, but for anglers, the big news has been about fish.

The lake has produced several big catches besides blue catfish. Among them are a 12-pound largemouth bass, 10-pound hybrid striped bass, 2.28-pound white bass, 12.40-pound channel catfish and 49.40-pound yellow catfish.

Fish consumption advisories for some species of fish that were established and later modified by Texas health officials remain on Lake Worth.

The recent big blue catfish catches likely are the result of the state’s last stockings of blue catfish in 1990, when 36,465 fingerlings were stocked there. The lake also has a good population of largemouth bass, which likely will flourish with the 2011 stockings of 173,982 fingerling Florida bass.

As for the Fergusons, it’s time to move on to other possible records. “We are going to start targeting Eagle Mountain Lake record for blue catfish,” Chad Ferguson said, “and this is one of the best time of the year to catch big catfish.”

Their target: a 45.56-pound Eagle Mountain Lake record blue catfish caught on April 30, 2011, by Doug Bailey.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/04/3712267/monster-catfish-no-match-for-fort.html

I did not get to fish much the last few days, we cancelled Saturday because of the high winds and and yesterday because the sub freezing cold, high winds and ice on the boat ramp so I spent most of the weekend chasing hogs with my son instead of fishing and working on the Spring Blue Catfish Techniques training program to be released from Learn To Catch Catfish.

It snowed last night pretty heavily here in my part of Fort Worth and we still have about an inch of snow on the ground and it is supposed to be seventy degrees on Wednesday so it appears the erratic weather is going to continue which will continue to make the fishing hit and miss until the weather straightens out. It’s not too uncommon for this time of year.

My March and April schedule is booked heavy, I have a handful of openings left and everything else is full. I still have a bunch of May openings and very few bookings for the late May and early June channel catfish bite. This is excellent channel catfishing and is a blast to fish if you want amazing numbers of channel catfish and fast action.

Lane was in the Star Telegram last week for his record fish caught at Lake Worth, be sure to check it out when you have a minute. Also if you have not done so already be sure to check out our Facebook page.

If you are interested in fishing you can call me at 817-522-3804 or email me chad@learntocatchcatfish.com

I have been on Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth several times this week and it is absolutely amazing how much the lakes have changed in a few short days.

As of right now 10:00 PM on Saturday January 28th 2012 Eagle Mountain is 1.16 feet low and Lake Worth is slightly above pool at 594.07 (pool is 594).

The water is still rolling in and most of the creeks and the Trinity River is still out of it’s banks so I expect the water to continue to rise. I expect that Eagle Mountain will fill the rest of of the way within the next couple of days and another big rain could put it well above pool. This will definitely make things easier as we head into spring and summer fishing for channel catfish and blue catfish.

Lake Worth Fishing Guide Report

The Lake Worth Fishing Guide Report for this week is good. We fished for trophy blue catfish several times since our last fishing report and the bite continues to be good. Lake Worth is getting a lot more pressure than normal due to all the news on the record catfish but we continue to be able to catch good numbers of trophy blue catfish on Lake Worth. The water is slightly normal than usual for this time of year but I expect  it will cool off some with the front that came through today.

I went last night and did some scouting and was able to get to a lot of areas that have not been accessible for quite some time and did a little scouting. I expect the February trophy blue catfish bite to continue to be good.

Eagle Mountain Lake Fishing Guide Report

The Eagle Mountain Lake Fishing Guide Report is fair. The water is muddy and there is not only water pouring into Eagle Mountain Lake but they are also letting water out. We fished this morning and the fish were not where I expected them to be. I think the massive flow of water coming in combined with water being let out, as well as the cold front that came through last night made for some tough fishing. We managed to boat some nice blue catfish on Eagle Mountain Lake but it took a while to find them. The channel catfish were stacked up and the white bass were eating us alive while we were trying to catch blue catfish. I expect the fishing to improve within the next day or so but we will continue to focus the majority of our efforts on catching trophy blue catfish on Worth for now. As we get towards mid to late February I will move my efforts towards fishing on Eagle Mountain Lake.

I went and did some scouting this afternoon and was able to get into some areas I have not been able to access since last April. The good news is I could get into these areas now because the water has come up so much. There is a TON of vegetation that has grown up during the drought and it will change the landscape of the fishing this spring but it will still excellent.

Spring Catfishing

My schedule is filling up for March, April and May trips. This is the best fishing for the year for numbers of blue catfish. If you want your choice of dates you need to get booked now. Give me a call at 817-522-3804 or email me at chad@learntocatchcatfish.com

This is the article that appeared in the Dallas Morning news about my sons Texas state junior angler record blue catfish. The blue catfish was caught on Lake Worth.  For more information on our Lake Worth Fishing Guide services check out the Lake Worth Fishing Guide page.

Lane Ferguson, 12, of Fort Worth, Texas, got an early Christmas present when he caught a 66.28-pound blue catfish from Lake Worth on Dec. 23.

Last week, the young angler scored again when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department certified his big fish for six records.

Lane has the junior angler state record and the junior state catch-and-release record for blue cats, both junior and all-age lake records for Lake Worth and catch-and-release records for junior and all-age anglers. He also got a big fish award.

Lane, who required less than 10 minutes to land his record fish, has a leg up in the catfish records department. His father is Chad Ferguson, a Dallas-area fishing guide (txcatfishguide.com). Ferguson specializes in big fish and expects his son to set other records in the Dallas area. Here’s a question and answer session with Chad Ferguson about catching catfish:

What are your favorite catfish lakes?

I stay pretty close to home. I primarily fish at Lake Worth, Eagle Mountain and Lewisville this time of year but will occasionally hop around to Grapevine and Ray Roberts.

Lewisville has a lot of big blues. Eagle Mountain has good numbers to 25 or 30 pounds, but we don’t catch really big ones there, yet. I think guys get caught up in the hype and think they need to travel to lakes with reputations for producing monsters.

How long does the big fish season continue?

You can catch big blues all year, but they’re tougher to pattern in warmer months. I usually start focusing on big fish in mid-October, and the bite is usually consistent until mid-March. My favorite time is late January and early February. That’s when we seem to catch the biggest ones.

How do you rig for blues?

The majority of the time, I fish with a slip sinker rig or a Santee rig. The difference between the two is a small foam peg on the leader for a Santee rig, and I make my leaders a little longer than most anglers. You can learn these rigs online at learntocatchcatfish.com.

What’s the most productive bait?

Fresh shad. It must be fresh, no exceptions. A lot of people try to cut corners and fish with frozen bait or grocery store baits, but fresh shad will outfish them all day long.

Do you anchor or drift?

I do both. Different times call for different approaches. It depends on what I’m seeing on my sonar. I use the Humminbird sonar and side imaging to locate big blues and determine my approach from there.

What’s the best single day of fishing you’ve had for big fish?

I’ve had a few that were unreal but they don’t happen often. Years ago at Cedar Creek Lake, my friend and fellow guide Jackie Kennedy and I fished in late January and caught 25 or 30 big ones.

One other time in January, we managed over 30 trophy-sized fish at Lewisville.

You’re a proponent of releasing big catfish. Do you see more anglers releasing the big ones?

I think so. It’s becoming much more accepted. Most hardcore catfish anglers are releasing all the big fish. I’d like to see TPWD expand slot limits and start developing trophy fisheries all over the state.

The catfish is the No. 2 Texas game fish, and the sport is growing rapidly.

(1) Catch and Release Water Body Record
(2) Water Body Record
(3) Catch and Release Water Body Junior Angler
(4) Water Body Record Junior Angler
(5) Catch and Release State Record Junior Angler
(6) State Record Junior Angler Blue Catfish
(7) Big Fish Award

On top of receiving the records this week Lane was also featured in the Dallas Morning news on Sunday January 22nd 2012 for catching the big catfish and there is also a brief Q&A section with me on fishing for trophy blue catfish. Be sure to check it out when you have a minute it is available on the Dallas Morning News website also.

There have been a number of other media reports over the past few weeks including this one from Brazos Outdoors.

Fishing Report

The fishing this past week has been much like it has been the past few weeks, CRAZY. There have been some great days and some bad days and the fishing is just all over the place. This is hands down the craziest winter I have fished since I started guiding ten years ago. The weather patterns are causing the big blues to move around a lot and they are doing some really weird things, and the water temperature is much warmer than it typically is this time of year. I have fished in shorts and t-shirts several times in the past couple of weeks and actually been hot while I am fishing.

It seems like as long as we have some wind and cooler weather the fishing is good and as soon as we get these warm bluebird days the fishing gets tough. We have had some good success on these warmer days but they have definitely been much more difficult to fish.

My spring schedule is starting to fill up quickly so if you plan on fishing late March, April or early May you need to give me a shout and get on the schedule as soon as possible.

Learn To Catch Catfish

In February 2012 I am releasing the next installment in my series of e-books and online training programs, Spring Catfishing. This is an in depth step by step guide on locating and catching blue catfish in the Spring. There is a brief summary of what to expect in the video below. You can learn more on the Spring Catfishing page on Learn To Catch Catfish.

I am trying to get back in the habit of posting fishing reports every 1 to 2 weeks here on the site.

Before I get into the fishing report I wanted to share a recent media piece that was done on me and North Texas Catfish Guide Service by Matt Williams. The piece is titled Cold Water = Big Catfish and the article is on page 42 of the January 2011 issue of Texas Fish and Game Magazine. I will try to remember to post a link next month when the article is available on their website or you can check it out at newsstands now.

You can also check out or media page to view other articles, videos and news coverage on North Texas Catfish Guide Service.

Texas Catfish Guide Fishing Report

I have been fishing Lake Worth the past week and concentrating solely on trophy blue catfish. Fish have been good to 40 lbs with a lot of good fish over 20 lbs but the bite has been a little inconsistent. The unseasonably warm weather we have been having has the bait fish scattered and the blue catfish always follow them. We have had to spend a lot of time hunting and chasing fish as they are not nearly as stacked up as they should be this time of year. The weather has been crazy to say the least being early January and I fished in shorts several times over the past week it was so warm.

We finally had some cooler weather roll through yesterday and it has been raining for the last 24 hours. The weather is supposed to stay cool over the next week so it should help the fishing considerably. The much needed rain is a welcome site also and we are getting some good runoff into the lakes. Hopefully this will help the water levels some at Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Grapevine over the next couple of days.

I am starting to get a lot of calls about the early spring Brazos River fishing trips from those that have fished with me in previous years. I have not been on the river but I am getting reports that there is golden algae in the river and it has moved up as far as Sanchez Creek. This is only second hand information and I have not verified with Texas Parks and Wildlife or been on the Brazos River myself. I am being told however the fish kills are starting and there are dead fish everywhere. I plan on going out to verify this later in the month and put some calls into the parks and wildlife folks. If the fish kill did occur it is not likely I will do any of the early spring trips on the Brazos this year.

Availability and Spring Catfishing Action

I have a handful of January and February dates still available for trophy catfish. I am already starting to get a lot of bookings for spring shallow water catfish trips. The big fish bite will hold out until early to mid March and then I will turn my focus to box fish with some bigger fish mixed in.

Spring is absolutely the best time for catching excellent numbers of blues and is hands down my favorite time of the year to catch shallow water catfish.

If you are interested in booking give me a call at 817-522-3804 or email me at chad@learntocatchcatfish.com

I committed to taking some time off over the holidays to get him out on the water and catch some blue catfish and he wanted to catch a junior angler record blue catfish on one of the North Texas area lakes.   Over the past week Lake Lewisville and Eagle Mountain Lake had not been producing any good numbers of big catfish so we set off to Lake Worth to catch some big catfish.

On arrival at the lake a friend called and informed me his son had landed a new junior angler lake record blue catfish of 37 lbs about fifteen minutes prior. We headed off for our day of fishing and ended up the day with a 36 lb blue for the biggest fish, just one pound shy of the junior angler record caught earlier that day and had that fish not been caught he would have had a fish in the record books. Pretty disappointed we headed home.

Two days later on December 23, 2011 we snuck out for some quick afternoon catfishing on Lake Worth with plans to catch some trophy blue catfish. We arrived at Lake Worth and set up for some fishing and after a short while hooked into a fish. When the Team Catfish Thunder Cat Catfish Rod doubled over in the water I knew immediately that it was a good fish but I didn’t know how good. A few minutes into the fight the boat turned into the wind and I realized the boat was being drug along by this fish I had a much better idea what kind of fish this was. It takes a pretty good catfish to move the boat into the wind in that kind of wind.

A short while later I netted a monster catfish and put it on my scales, getting a weight of roughly 66 lbs on my digital scales. I immediately realized the fish was at least a junior angler record so I put the fish in the livewell of my Xpress boat and headed to find certified scales. This proved difficult as it was 4:00 in the afternoon on a holiday weekend. We finally found certified scales and had the fish weighed.

Lane’s 66.28 lb blue catfish is being submitted for the following record on Lake Worth.

• Texas Junior Angler Blue Catfish Record
• Lake Worth Junior Angler Blue Catfish Record
• Lake Worth Blue Catfish Record
• Lake Worth Blue Catfish Catch and Release Record

I couldn’t be more proud of Lane and this was the best Christmas present I could have received.

This is the best time of year for catching trophy class catfish on rod and reel. If you would like to book a fishing trip give me a call at 817-522-3804.

Posted Saturday, Mar. 20, 2010

By ART CHAPMAN

Special to the Star-Telegram

I look back with great fondness at what we call “the good old days.” Those are different days for all of us, depending on our ages, but for me it was back in the early 1950s when I would go fishing with my grandfather. He was a quiet man who believed talking too much would spook the fish, fishing from the bank was as good as fishing from a boat, and bait was anything that was left in the refrigerator.

Those would be silly rules to fish by these days; might have been silly rules in those days too. But I loved the experience and if I missed some fish because of them, I really don’t care. My memories are of my grandfather, not the fish.

Chad Ferguson, a professional fishing guide from Saginaw, strikes me as a person with similar feelings. He is a family man and clearly enjoys including his family in all that he does. And just about all he does is fish for catfish. That’s what his guide business is based on and that’s what supports his bait business. It is also the reason he has started a new blog called learntocatchcatfish.com.

Fishing for catfish isn’t as simple as it once was. My grandfather would take what seemed to be immeasurable time molding a simple piece of white bread into a hard ball of dough bait. He would somehow work it on a treble hook and drop it in the water. I never knew how he made that simple piece of bread stay together so long, but he did, and he caught his fair share of fish.

Ferguson’s technique is a little more complicated. One of the major topics in his blog includes the different kinds of bait for catfish and the different ways to use the baits.

His primary subject on the site right now is “chumming.” Fishermen know that chumming basically means dropping bits of bait, usually chopped up so that the oils will slowly spread, over a fishing spot in hopes of drawing the fish to that spot. It is probably a technique used more among saltwater fishermen than those hunting catfish, but Ferguson says the technique will work.

But he goes on to explain that the kind of chum you use is determined by what kind of catfish you are trying to catch. Chum that will attract blue cat won’t necessarily draw channel cat, and it takes a different kind to bring in the flatheads.

Chum for catfish isn’t ground up fish guts, either, he points out. The best chum for catfish is actually soured grain.

Ferguson’s blog talks a lot about catfish bait, but there are a lot of different kinds to talk about — punch baits, dip baits, blood baits and dough baits. Everyone is looking for just the right recipe; the general thought seems to be the more it stinks the better it is.

I found nothing in Ferguson’s long list of recipes that would dispel that theory.

I particularly liked the recipe for “Cajun Mud Catfish Bait.” It starts with 24 dead minnows left to stew in their own juices for at least 24 hours. You keep about a quarter cup of those juices for the mix. There is one box of cherry Jell-O; a quarter cup of molasses, some onion, salt and garlic, bread crumbs, soy sauce and just enough flour to thicken the whole concoction into one-inch balls.

You don’t get that information on every fishing Web site.

“I really like passing on that kind of information and I enjoy writing,” Ferguson said from his home in Saginaw. “I started another Web site back in about 2000 and I had never done one before. It got pretty popular, but when I needed to update it, I found out my inexperience was a killer. It was hard to maintain.”

Over the years, he has launched a number of other sites, one for his bait business and one for his guide business, among them, and he has picked up a lot of experience. Now, he said, he felt ready to put together another general catfish site that he could more easily maintain.

He started it in mid-February and the response has been unexpectedly high, he said. He has had a lot of e-mails in response to the articles, and he’s heard from a number of companies who might advertise on the site.

Mostly, though, it has given him an outlet for his writing. It will probably help his bait business in the long run, and it will most certainly add to his bookings as a guide. But he said it will be hard to tell about that kind of impact for quite a while.

“Right now, when the sun first pops out in the spring is when people come out of the woodwork wanting to go fishing,” he said. “My phone is beginning to ring off the wall. It will be a while before I can tell how much of that is due to the blog and how much is just the normal rush to get on the water.”

Ferguson said he plans to have other guides contribute to learntocatchcatfish.com in the coming months. He wants to involve fishing experts from all over the country, not just Texas.

“I’ve talked with a number of guys who might contribute an article or two each month,” he said. “I’d like to do some fishing reports, and write a few profiles, too.”

BY ART CHAPMAN

Special to the Star-Telegram

I’ve always thought of catfishing as kind of a secretive sport.

Years of information is passed down from generation to generation; hot spots are closely guarded, never divulged; best baits are often homegrown recipes and a lot of action goes on under the surface — on trotlines and jug lines — where the “catching” can’t be seen.

If you wanted a guide, the best thing to do was ask around the marina, or maybe, if you were lucky, you could find a business card pinned to the bulletin board at the bait shop.

But like most things in fishing, catfishing is changing. The information is still somewhat guarded, but guides such as Saginaw’s Chad Ferguson are pulling the curtain back and introducing a number of new anglers to the challenges of stalking the whiskered fish.

Ferguson is a young man, a family man, with a long history of catfishing. And he is also a man well versed in digital and cellular technology; which is to say he runs multiple websites that center on the sport of catfishing as well as serve as his primary marketing tools.

Now a lot of guides have websites, but Ferguson goes beyond a few photos of his guided trips and telephone numbers to reach him. He has a website for his guide business, one for the catfish bait he manufactures, another for the jugs he builds for jug line fishing, and yet another to simply disseminate information on the overall sport of catching catfish.

He is also on Twitter and Facebook.

When we visited earlier this week, I had to ask him if all that computer activity kept him off the water, and therefore was a hindrance to his fishing.

He laughed, reiterated to me that he was a workaholic, and promised his guide business was a busy as always. He is simply building for the future: providing interesting information to people who think they might like catfishing, and therefore increasing the scope of his potential clientele.

“The last couple of months or so, I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from people I’ve never heard from before,” he said. “They specifically mention my websites and they express a lot of appreciation for the information they’ve been able to get.

“Before, I would usually just hear from my customers, and people who heard about me by word of mouth.”

The interest has caused Ferguson to begin reworking the sites, moving some of the older material to archives, and making plans for new, innovative features up front.

He said he is still a couple of weeks away from any announcements, but followers of his sites can be on the lookout for some pretty neat ideas, such as videos, more question-and-answer segments, and maybe, at some point, live pod casts.

A lot of his information will be guided toward his Learn To Catch Catfish website.

“We’re going to centralize a lot of the information on WhiskerKitty.com,” he said. “Not so much of the information will be about techniques, but we’ll help people find guides on specific lakes, get information about those lakes, and we’ll list all the tournaments.”

He’s still trying to figure out how much all this information is going to cost him — particularly the bandwidth costs involved in the Catfishing Radio podcasts. He said he’ll try to keep it all free for a while, but ultimately there might be a small membership fee for those who want to invest in more information.

He’s just finished a book on jug fishing, he said, and he’s working on a companion video series.

“So far, I’m not making any money off of it all,” he said. “I haven’t seen a significant change in my business. But I do get a lot of feedback from people who say they appreciate it and I’ve got to think it will come back around to me one way or the other. It should be some good karma if nothing else.”

In the meantime, fishing’s been good, he said.

“It was going real good a few weeks ago; we had one morning where we caught 135 fish in about 21/2 hours. The blue catfish started showing up and we were catching some bigger fish.”

It kind of died off, though, he said and the local lakes began turning over.

“We’re probably one or two more good cold snaps away from it being really good again,” he said.

Ferguson said he’s been fishing Eagle Mountain Lake mostly, but plans to work Lake Worth more this winter.

“Interest in catfishing seems to increase every year,” he said. “It is still considered the No. 2 game fish in

Texas. But I don’t know if there really is more interest, or because of the Internet and the social networking it’s just more visible.

“I think about it a lot.”

Catfish bait business is sweet success for Saginaw fishing guide – and that’s no lye

By ART CHAPMANSpecial to the Star-Telegram

Bass fishing reigns supreme in Texas. There’s no doubt about that. Just wander through the aisles at any big sporting goods store and measure the shelf space for bass tackle against that for any other kind of fishing. It won’t even be close.

And over in the corner, probably on a lower shelf, there will be about a 3-foot space for catfish paraphernalia — some treble hooks, sinkers, a few corks, maybe, and stink bait. Yet fishing for catfish ranks second in popularity among Texas anglers, and it seems to be gaining.

“There’s definitely been an increase in interest in catfish fishing in the last four or five years,” said Chad Ferguson, a professional fishing guide from Saginaw. “There has been a heightened awareness about it; some of the bigger fish have had a lot of exposure. Look in the fishing magazines and you’ll find tons of exposure for the trophy blue cats and flathead cats.”

Bass get big in Texas, but you’re not going to pull a 30-pounder off the bottom of the lake.

The economics of catfish fishing are becoming important as well. As popular as bass fishing is, it remains a relatively expensive sport, especially if anglers decide to go the tournament route.

That requires a substantial boat with a fast motor to cover as much lake in as little time as possible. It is critical in bass fishing tournaments to be able get from one spot to another quickly.

“Bass fishing can be a lot of work, too,” Ferguson said. “It’s not easy standing up on the front of that boat chucking lures all day. Not everyone enjoys that. And they don’t enjoy the numbers game, either. Catching seven or eight fish a day bass fishing represents a phenomenal day, but at certain times a year, I could put 100 catfish in the boat in a couple of hours.”

Marketing is probably what keeps catfish behind bass when it comes to popularity. Fishing for catfish is a pretty simple endeavor that can be done from a jon boat or a riverbank. It can be done with trotlines, or jug lines, or with lines tied to overhanging tree limbs. You can sit in one spot and do it, or you can move from one channel to another.

There are limited products that can be marketed for catfish, Ferguson said. “I’ve been fishing for catfish all my life. I do it as a guide, and my tackle box is about the size of a lunch pail — some sinkers, swivels and corks, and a chartreuse slab. That’s it.”

But that’s not really it. Another unusual aspect about fishing for catfish is the long history of homemade baits. Normally, the idea of catfish bait conjures up images of nose-burning, stomach-churning stink bait. The recipe for stink bait is usually to find something that smells bad from the start, mix it with other bad-smelling things and leave it all in the sun until the container rots away. Then, dip a treble hook in it, yank it out and throw it in the water.

Another kind of catfish bait that has been around as long as stink bait is lye soap. Old timers swear by it, and they say Procter & Gamble used to make the best. They don’t anymore, but Ferguson does, and his bait business now occupies about as much of his time as his guide business does.

“I grew up fishing Possum Kingdom Lake and Eagle Mountain Lake — fished them all my life — with my father and grandfather. They used lye soap,” he said. “About 10 years ago, I found an old recipe and got to tinkering with it. I went through about 15 batches of bad bait before I got one to set up right. I threw out hundreds of pounds of bait, five pounds at a time.”

Eventually, he got it right and started using it in his guide business. Customers and friends wanted some, so he gave it away. “It was one of those things that got out of control,” he said. “It was never meant to be a business.”

Now, Redneck’s Catfish Bait Soap is a pretty good seller. He sometimes makes 600-pound batches in a week, using a “big tub and mixing it with a boat paddle,” and has a hard time keeping up. He’s looking into some new machinery that will allow him to produce 2,500 pounds at a time. “I used to wrap it up in butcher’s paper and a piece of masking tape,” he said. “Now, I’ve gone to Ziploc bags.”

It can be ordered online, or from a few distributors. He said Olsen’s Pro-Am Fishing Shop on Roberts Cut-Off Road is his oldest distributor. “She was the first one to sell it for me, and I always make sure she gets a supply,” he said.

Ferguson said he wants to make sure the bait business doesn’t get too big. “I do 95 percent of it myself,” he said. “My 10-year-old son, Lane, and my wife, Leanne, help me sometimes, and sometimes I get some of the neighborhood kids here in Saginaw to help. But my wife and son are the only ones beside me who know what goes in the soap.”

It’s not “rocket science,” he said. It is just lye and animal fat, but with a few flavors and seasonings added. Those additions are what make some baits work, and why some don’t.

It depends on the time of year also,” he said. “Spring and summer, when everybody wants to start fishing, I have a hard time making it. The weather has to be just right?…?too cold or too humid, and it won’t work. So, I make bait when I can, and I run fishing trips in between.”

Bass fishing in Texas is big, but the catfish business for Ferguson is pretty good, too.

For more information

Lye-soap bait: catfishbaitsoap.com Chad Ferguson’s fishing guide service: txcatfishguide.com