Where and How to Catch Fish in August and Early September
with Roger Stegall at Pickwick Lake
Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty
 Editor’s
Note: Roger Stegall, the owner and operator of Roger
Stegall’s Professional Guide Service on Pickwick
Lake, which makes up the boundary of Tennessee, Mississippi
and Alabama, has fished Pickwick Lake for 32 years and
guided on the lake for 22 years. Unlike many guides,
Stegall will help you find and catch any species of
fish. He’s just as comfortable running a trotline
and catching catfish as he is guiding his clients to
smallmouth that weigh over 5-pounds each. He can put
you on a limit of white bass or show you where and how
to catch the biggest largemouth you’ve ever hooked.
You pick the species, and Stegall will locate the fish
and show you how to catch it.
Question: Roger, I know you fish for catfish and take
your clients catfishing. Tell me where and how you’re
catching them in August and September.
Stegall: Most pure bass fishermen don’t think
a bass-fishing guide should fish for catfish. But those
Tennessee catfish really pull well, bring smiles to
my clients’ faces and are delicious to eat. Remember
that I’m a fishing guide, and I’ll take
my customers to catch wha tever
they want to catch. If they want to catch catfish, we’ll
catch catfish. I have customers who’ve fished
with me for 15 to 18 years. We catfish together every
year, and I really enjoy it. When we go catfishing,
we catch numbers of catfish. The Tennessee River where
Pickwick’s located is a dynamite river for catching
catfish and is full of catfish. We fish for the cats
with rod and reels, the Strike King jugs made especially
for catfishing and trotlines. I like to see those Strike
King jugs when big catfish get on them.
Question: When you’re jug fishing for cats, how
deep do you have your lines, and how deep are you putting
your jugs out to catch cats?
Stegall: If I’ll be fishing the jugs in the daytime,
I’ll use fairly-long lines. If the bottom’s
20-feet deep, I’ll set my jugs with lines to fish
at about 17- to 18-feet deep. If the bottom’s
deeper, I’ll have enough line to keep my bait
about 1 or 2 feet off the bottom. If I’ll be fishing
at night, I’ll be fishing more shallow. I’ll
only have 6 to 12 feet of line on my jugs. Many people
don’t believe it, but catfish will come up and
feed in more-shallow water at  night
than they will in the daytime. Too, I catch cats by
putting out trotlines. I generally put out two trotlines
with about 75-hooks each. Although normally I’ll
have my trotlines with the hooks just off the bottom,
sometimes I’ll float my lines, so the trotline
is only about 6-feet under the surface. If I see numbers
of mussels dying on the river when we have an oxygen
depletion, with their shells open and their bodies floating
on the surface, I’ll have my lines only about
6 feet from the surface. The last time I floated trotlines,
we caught 150 pounds of catfish in one night.
Question: What are you baiting with when you’re
fishing for cats?
Stegall: I prefer Strike King’s Catfish Dyna-Bite
links. I like the blood, the shad and the catalpa worm
flavors. Too, I’ll bait some hooks with just hotdogs
cut into little chunks. Trotlining is a lot of fun because
you never know what you’ll have on that line when
you go out to run it.
Question: What’s the average catch when you run
your trotlines in the morning, if you have two lines
out with 75-hooks each?
Stegall: The last time I put out trotlines, we had 27
catfish that weighed a total of 175 pounds. Our biggest
cat weighed about 12 pounds. During the hot months of
August and September, catfishing is a lot of fun at
Pickwick Lake, whether you’re jug fishing during
the day or at night, rod and reel fishing or putting
out trotlines. Strike King’s catfish baits will
help you put more cats in your boat than you want to
clean.
To fish with Roger Stegall at Roger Stegall’s
Guide Service or learn more about the fish at Pickwick
Lake, call him at 662-433-3869, or visit www.fishpickwick.com,
or email rogstegall@fishpickwick.com.
For more information on staying at Pickwick Landing
State Park on Pickwick Lake, contact the Hardin County
Convention and Visitor’s Bureau at info@tourhardincounty.org,
call (731) 925-8181 or (800) 552-3866, or visit www.tourhardincounty.org.
Pickwick Landing State Park offers fishing, boating,
hiking, camping, swimming and golf. Lodging includes
the lakeside inn with over 100 rooms, cabins that sleep
eight and a campground that contains 48 sites with grill
and electric/water hookup at each site. A restaurant
at the park offers delicious southern cuisine. Call
(731) 689-3135 or (800) 250-8615 to learn more.
Tomorrow: Hot-Weather Deep-Water
Largemouth
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