Veteran angler catching fewer small catfish

John Phillips

During or just after a heavy rain is when Citrano drops everything to head to the Cross Lake to catch catfish that stack up in the bayous and drains.

Charles Citrano has lived on Cross Lake for the last 15 years, but he estimates that over his 71 years of life he’s spent as much time on Cross Lake as he has at work.

In that time, he’s seen an interesting change take place in the catfishing.

"It’s just as good now as it’s always been," he said. "The only difference I can see now is that I’m catching bigger catfish.

"I made a short drift-fishing trip a few weeks ago, and I only caught 10 fish, but my gosh they were all 3-, 4- and 5-pound fish. I’m not catching any small catfish like I used to. I’m talking about little 6- or 8-inch fingerlings."

Although he admittedly has no evidence to back it up, Citrano said the change to bigger catfish seemed to begin some 15 or 20 years ago when a company came in and netted the lake for trash fish.

"And catfish were considered trash fish," Citrano pointed out. "I don’t know if it had anything to do with it, but I just haven’t caught many small catfish 1 pound and under ever since then."