"I take my children jug-fishing, and we generally put out our jugs around 3 or 4 p.m. But we've found that we catch the most catfish about an hour before sunset," he offered.

Where does he fish for this action?
"I've always caught the most catfish around the Lake Point Resort area, especially when jug-fishing. A number of people camp around the lake, and they always throw out a lot of food. So, there's a lot of food around Lake Point. However, you'll catch plenty of cats just about anywhere on the lake."

Lake Point Resort State Park is located on the Cowikee Creek arm of the upper half of the reservoir.

At this time of year, Weathers catches more than 100 catfish in a day, weighing about 1/2 to 4 pounds each -- all good eating-sized cats.

"We don't fish for the big cats," Weathers noted. "We bait with liver or cut bait, and we're trying to catch eating-sized cats."

Jackie Thompson has fished and guided on the Chattahoochee River since before the impoundment of Lake Eufaula. Thompson primarily guides bass fishermen, but also targets cats.

"Many of my bass-fishing customers like to catch and release bass," he pointed out, "but they also like to bring home a mess of fish. If I know my customers want to take home fish, I'll take about 25 jugs with me to catch catfish while we're fishing for bass. Catfishing is a great way to catch fish to take home for dinner."

Thompson searches for cats by floating jugs baited with cut shad or bream at the mouths of creeks and along weed edges.

"If you want to catch really big catfish, you need to use bream about three fingers wide, hooked either in their lips or their backs with slip-sinkers up the line," Thompson explained. "Fishing like this on the edges of the river channel, you catch some big fish."

His favorite spots to catch big cats are in eddy holes below the points formed by big bends in the old river channel. He casts a line to the edge of the current and lets it move the bream into the eddy hole. That's where those big catfish sit and wait. The best time to catch cats is when current is being generated through the lake.

During the summer months, Thompson only targets catfish from daybreak until about 10 a.m. That easily can produce 25 to 30 cats during a morning.

"I never take more than 25 jugs because that's usually all you can keep up with, especially if current is coming through the lake," Thompson described. "Chasing jugs, chasing cats, re-baiting the jugs and chasing other jugs is a lot of fun here at Eufaula. We have plenty of catfish for folks to catch."