Delta catfishermen traditionally have remained more hush-mouthed about their hotspots than tailrace and state lake fishermen. That is probably because the best places are not as easy to find as the more easily defined destinations. Rarely will you see a Delta fisherman pull his boat out at a boat ramp, show off his catfish catch, and tell anyone where he caught them. Which, of course, just means that finding your own honeyhole may ensure that you have it all to yourself as well!

OUR HIDDEN CATFISH HOTSPOT
More than likely, you have never heard of the Sucarnoochee River. Unless you live near it, why would you have? This small river is really more of a stream in most places, does not flow close to any heavily populated area, and has few spots where you can put in a boat. It flows into the Tombigbee River southeast of Bellamy in Sumter County, far downstream from its beginnings in Kemper County, Miss. You need a detailed map to even find the river. But for a dedicated catfish fan, it is worth the effort.

Toxey Haas, president of Mossy Oak Camouflage in West Point, Miss., does not spend all his time thinking about how to make sportsmen invisible to bucks and gobblers. He also spends time on the water trying to fool a few whiskerfish.

"I fish the Sucarnoochee River near Livingston every year," he admits. "This small stream has plenty of big cats on it and receives very little fishing pressure. I can fish there from daylight until dark and never see another catfisherman."

Fortunately, I too am familiar with the Sucarnoochee, because it flows on that edge of the town of Livingston where I attended college. This small stream has numbers of potholes, ledges, dropoffs and pockets that hold cats. It has a steady current flowing through it and quite a few minnows and bluegills on which the cats can feed.

FINDING THE WATER

When looking for the smaller streams that hold catfish in the Cotton State, a good resource is Alabama Canoe Rides and Float Trips, by John Foshee. Available at most bookstores and outfitters shops, the book provides put-in and take-out places and gives a detailed map of many such streams in the state. It also contains details about the type of water you will find and the fishing you can expect. Another good resource to look at is the DeLorme Alabama Atlas and Gazetteer. It is available in bookstores or from retail chain merchants and shows county roads and even dirt trails leading to many streams. If you have trouble finding the atlas, call DeLorme at (207) 846-7000 or visit their Web site, at www.delorme.com

A canoe or a flat-bottomed johnboat provides the best way to fish this small river. If you plan a trip down it, study maps carefully to find public access points, usually below bridges that cross the river.

Catfish on the Sucarnoochee prefer live minnows or cut shad, and a portable depthfinder with a suction-cup transducer attached to a 2x4 on the side of your canoe or boat will give you an accurate reading of the bottom as you paddle or motor down the Sucarnoochee. Look for bottom breaks, holes, stumps, logs or boulders along the river, and plan to fish behind them.

The catfish in this little river, as in many smaller streams throughout the state, will hold behind the current breaks of these types of structures.

The Sucarnoochee River offers a prime example of South Alabama's most overlooked catfishing hotspots -- the many little creeks and small rivers throughout the state that have plenty of catfish in them. You mainly catch channel cats in these types of places, but bullheads are common too. A gob of night crawlers or dead and live minnows pay the most catfish dividends. If you fish these small streams just after a summer rain, you can often locate the catfish concentrated in the little run-off feeder creeks and ditches coming into these small waters.

If you like an adventure as well as a great catfishing opportunity, then plan to fish the Sucarnoochee River and any of the other small waterways scattered throughout the state. I call this type of angling blue-line fishing. When you look on a highway map, you see small blue lines crossing under roads and highways throughout the southern half of the state. These blue lines indicate small streams and creeks that get very little, if any, fishing pressure and usually hold good numbers of channel cats and an occasional flathead.