By Joe Mosby

Arkansas outdoor writer Keith Sutton has acquired a nickname over the years — Catfish.

It’s appropriate.

Sutton has caught catfish since boyhood. He’s caught them in Arkansas, other states and several foreign locales like Brazil, Mexico and Canada. He knows catfish so he writes about them and in recent times has given a number of seminars to anglers eager to learn about the challenging residents of rivers, lakes, sloughs, bayous and creeks.

Sutton is 55, and he and his wife, Theresa, live at Alexander. They have six sons.

Today, he answers in detail some questions about his catfish specialty.

Q: Why catfish for your focus? Largemouth bass and trout usually attract more attention. Was there a need in your viewpoint for catfish information?

Sutton: When I became a freelance writer, I realized I needed a niche I could claim as my own. At the time (late 1970s), almost no one was writing about catfishing, and because I loved catfishing and was proficient at it and thought someday it might become a sport with more widespread appeal in publications, I decided I’d try to stake my claim there. It was difficult at first selling stories on a fish many people then considered nothing more than trash fish.

But I knew when people read the many good things about catfish — a fish that is widely distributed, often underharvested, good to eat and which reach enormous sizes — I could help change their image as a trash fish into an image of a sportfish worthy of any angler. It took more than 30 years, but I think I played a big role in accomplishing that.

Q: Your eastern Arkansas background obviously is an asset for catfishing. Did you fish for them as a kid, and where?

Sutton: I had an uncle, Pat Murphree, who built a large farm pond that he stocked with catfish and placed off limits to any anglers except youngsters. It was there I first grew to love catfishing. I spent many days on his pond fishing with my sister and cousins, and we always caught lots of cats, including some really big ones my uncle had stocked especially for us. From this, I gained a love not only of catfishing, but for fishing as a whole. Later, I fished many of east Arkansas’ big rivers with other uncles, family members and friends, starting on the L’Anguille River, then later also fishing the St. Francis, White and Mississippi. All are excellent catfishing waters and fishing them led to another great love — a passion for flowing waters.

Q: Our three species of catfish in Arkansas — channel, blue and flathead — usually require different techniques and baits. Channels are much more plentiful, so is much of your instructional work aimed toward them?

Sutton: I try to teach people methods for catching all of the big three catfish in Arkansas. Some people want just to catch fish to eat. For them, the abundant channel cat is the perfect target. But other people hope to catch a trophy fish, one that may weigh 50 to 100 pounds or more — a fish of a lifetime for many. I enjoy teaching them tactics that will improve their success as well. Fortunately, many tactics will work for all three species, and its these I try to teach most often.

Q: Do you have a few tips for catfishing beginners?

Sutton: First, never bury the barb of your hook in the bait you are using. It makes it much more difficult to hook fish. And despite popular misconceptions, catfish do not discern a bare barb and say to themselves, “That looks like a hook so I won’t bite it.” They’re smart, but not that smart.

Second, never get gasoline, sunscreen, insect repellent or tobacco on your hands when you’ll be handling bait. Catfish are covered head to tail with taste buds and can taste minute quantities of things in the water, and these four things turn them off quickly. Get even a tiny amount on your bait, and you may fish a long time without a bite.

Third, fish year-round for catfish if you can, not just during summer when most folks think catfishing is best. Catfish bite year-round, day and night. And actually, the best fishing often is in the dead of winter when many people mistakenly believe catfish don’t bite. Flatheads are really hard to catch in cold water, but blues and channel cats feed actively throughout the coldest months. My favorite time for filling a boat with eaters is in January. Find the deepest hole in a catfish-stocked pond this month and fish a chicken liver on the bottom, and you will catch more catfish than you ever thought possible. Try it and see.

Q: What is your preference among the three species for eating?

Sutton: Honestly, I don’t think in a blind taste test most people could tell one species from another. But if I had my druthers, I’d eat a 1- to 5-pound flathead. I think these are the best-eating, especially if the fish is hung, its tail is cut off and its allowed to bleed out before it’s skinned and cut up. I always encourage people to practice restrictive harvest. Keep small cats to eat; release bigger ones to be caught again.

Q: What is your preferred form of cooking catfish — at home and in the field?

Sutton: I’m Arkansas bred, so deep-fried catfish is my favorite. My favorite recipe came from a Louisiana friend. Pour a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce in a half-gallon of milk. Stir. Soak all the catfish in this mixture for an hour or two before breading in seasoned cornmeal and deep-frying in peanut oil heated to 365 degrees. The fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork. Don’t overcook or it won’t be as good.

Q: You have written on catfish for years, and now you are lecturing on the topic. What has been the response and participation in your seminars?

Sutton: We’ve had an overwhelming response from people wanting to learn more about catfishing. The biggest crowd we’ve had so far was 175 people who showed up for one of my first seminars at the National Park Community College in Hot Springs.

At the nature centers, which won’t accommodate such large crowds, we typically have 50 to 80 people at each seminar. And this is the case no matter which of the nature centers I am speaking at: Little Rock, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff or Fort Smith.

Most people who come are folks who know a little about fishing in general, or catfishing specifically, but they want to learn more tricks to help them catch more fish. I try to accommodate them by providing a wide variety of easy to learn tips anyone can use to catch more cats wherever they fish.

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Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas’ best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.