Sooer or later someone will answer your question but first we will Welcome you to death, LOL
I agree bigger bait bigger fish that has been my experience
It all kinda depends on what kind of cats your going after. I am a bank fisher to and i tend to have more luck on the river systems then i do on the lakes. but when the cats start spawning i have a lot of luck on the lakes. Catfish start there spawn when the water gets around 70+ deg. I had the most luck with spawning cats around shallow rock beds. And for bait i use live blue gills, brim or Minnows for the flat heads. Skip jack i have found thanks to BOC is the best all round bait. You can get tuns of skip jack from under the dams when there running water. for skip jack try using a small jig head with a white grub on it. i use a small pan fish rod and real with 6 pound test line for that ( makes it funner:smile2:. if you need to know if a dam where you live is running water use this link http://tva.com/river/lakeinfo/index.htm. Also go thru the boc forum history, there is so much you can learn from boc. they have help me big time when it comes to catfishing.
Thats COMEDY:big_smile:
