Photo By Ron Sinfelt

It was a rather warm day for mid-winter, even in South Carolina. The high temperature had peaked at just over 60 degrees and the forecasted low was projected to be in the upper 30s that evening.

When I pulled into Michael Bernard's driveway in Summerville that afternoon, he met me with a big grin and the comment that it was a perfect evening to go catfishing. There was a time a statement like that in mid-winter would have caught me off guard. But not now.

Catfish are considered by most anglers to be primarily a warm-weather species of fish. Not that they aren't caught in cool, or even cold weather, because they are. But most anglers don't expect to catch large numbers, or large sizes, of the bewhiskered fish as they might at other times of year.

Through the years, however, I've learned that some outstanding winter catfish angling does exist in South Carolina. In fact, for numbers and sizes of fish, December and January rank near the peak time, if you know what you're doing. While we'll also be discussing the sensational cold-weather catfish action in lakes Marion and Moultrie in this feature, we're first going to look at a bonus fishery that I didn't discover until last winter. That was when I hooked up with Mike Bernard.

Bernard, through good ol' trial and error, has worked out a cold-weather catfish pattern that holds together well on the Cooper River. He's heard about all the big catfish being caught below the tailrace canal below Pinopolus Dam that impounds Lake Moultrie. The fishing for outlandish-sized catfish was known to be great in the spring and summer.

"So why not in the late fall and winter, too?" Bernard asked himself.

Thus, he began experimenting, but he did most of his fishing far below the dam. In fact, he fishes a number of different spots, but most of them are far down the river.

"I've found that by fishing some of the deeper holes, most of them found on the outside bends of the river channel, my buddy and I hook into some really big catfish on a consistent basis. And it seems like really cold weather and low water temperatures don't hurt the fishing a bit. One night in December of 2005, with the temperature dipping to 23 degrees, we caught three blue catfish weighing over 30 pounds each. That same week, we caught fish up to 42 pounds on another trip. Another night, we had eight fish with all of them over 20 pounds.

"Moreover, we seldom have any competition from other boats fishing for catfish. We've kind of got it all to ourselves," Bernard added.

I suspect one reason they have little if any competition is that they fish solely at night. The daytime fishing just doesn't stack up against what they catch at night.

"If you prepare for it, nighttime fishing isn't too cold most of the time. I will admit the night it dipped to 23 degrees before we left, ice was forming in the guides and it was somewhat cold. We rig a top on the boat and use a heater to help keep us warm on the really cold nights. However, if the fishing is good, as it usually is, we don't have a lot of time to worry about getting cold. Those big blues and flatheads keep us busy," he said.