"I don't know why catfish prefer chicken livers, because they certainly aren't found naturally in anywhere," King says. "But I've learned that during the hottest part of the summer, for some reason, chicken livers produce more and bigger cats during hot weather than any-other bait I've ever fished." King's catfish honey hole at Pickwick Lake on the Tennessee River is a spot in the middle of the river where the bottom drops off from 41 to 78 feet. "Upriver of the hole are a lot of mussel beds," King explains. "The cats feed on those mussels and then come back and rest in the hole. At this particular spot, the river necks-down. Even when there's not much current coming-through the river, this place almost always has more current than other locations on the river do. Anytime you can find a spot where a river becomes a bottleneck, and the area has plenty of current as well as a deep hole in it, you not only can find cats there but specifically big cats."
King fishes with bottom-bumping tackle and techniques. King also carries with him a large dip net, another of his secrets for landing big cats. "Many big cats are lost at the boat because an angler isn't prepared to boat a large catfish," King comments. "I use a 32-inch x 27-inch size dip net. Then, I can get a big cat in the net and pull it into the boat." King caught his biggest catfish ever, a 64 pounder, in 1997 during the National Catfish Derby. King has spent his lifetime fishing and more than 25 years targeting catfish on the Tennessee River and other places, including overseas. He'll take two anglers catfishing with their rods and reels all day, and they'll average 30 to 100 pounds of cats. "All the fishermen have to do is show-up with their fishing licenses, what they want to eat and drink and an ice chest to carry home their catches," King says. "I provide the rods, the reels, the hooks, the tackle and the bait. I clean the fish for them and then put the fish in their ice chests." To fish with Phil King's Catfishing Guide Service, call 662-286-8644, or go to http://www.h2othouse.com/
