An Expert’s Spoon-Fed Secret to Catching Catfish

Dick Gaumer, 55, marketing director for Irvine Lake and nearby Santa Ana River Lakes, is considered an expert light-tackle fisherman. Gaumer also used to raise catfish in aquariums and has learned a thing or two about their habits.

“They’ll eat anything in sight, including any other fish you got in there,” he says. “They’re mean. People think of them as bottom feeders. They’re not bottom feeders and they make a largemouth bass look like a sissy.”

Therefore, one need not restrict fishing technique to the smelly natural baits generally used to attract catfish. Gaumer, in fact, prefers artificial lures.

“All my biggest catfish, between 20 and 30 pounds, have been taken on spoons,” he says.

At Irvine Lake he uses nothing but half-ounce silver spoons.

“They are structure spoons,” he says. “In other words, they don’t go down in a hurry, they waddle back and forth like a dying threadfin shad. (Catfish) eat those things like hot cakes. They feel they’re going to get one chance at this dying fish and they just inhale it. That’s a neat technique to use and it’s a technique that nobody uses out there.”

Irvine Lake is open from 6 a.m. daily and remains open until 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. There is a $10 admission fee. Rental boats are available--and a must at night--$30 with motor and $18 without. Pontoon boats capable of holding eight persons are available for $65. No fishing license is required.