Though remote, 2,212-acre Millers Creek Reservoir is listed by the TPWD as an excellent catfish hole. In fact, for all other species it’s listed as “good,” with catfish being the only game fish in the “excellent” box. The lake, impounded in 1974, is 77 miles south of Wichita Falls near Munday.
Catfish are best in the top half of the lake.
In the middle of West Texas, just outside of San Angelo, is Lake Nasworthy. Impounded in 1930, this lake covers only 1,380 acres. But catfish are good on live or prepared baits almost anywhere in the lake.
Finally, keep in mind that the limit for channel and blue catfish is 25 in any combination. Either fish has to be at least 12 inches long to be a keeper. The limit for flatheads is five; the minimum length for keepers is 18-inches.
Channel catfishing is good pretty much year ‘round; the very best blue catfishing is in winter. Though flatheads are good eating and get pretty big, the TPWD reports that yellow cats make up only about 1 percent of the state’s catfish population.
No matter where you fish, the TPWD encourages the release of any blues weighing more than 10 pounds. (The big blues don’t taste that good anyway.)
“Anything over 10 is well on the way to trophy size,” biologist Tibbs said. “Small blues are just as tasty as channel cats, by the way.” One reason that Texas is such a good state for big blues, he added, is that a lot of fishermen do release the big boys. “Once they are good-sized, they are able to eat big shad and they go rapidly.” In other words, the bigger they get, the bigger they get.
So don’t hog the big blues. Get someone to take a picture of you and that trophy and then put it back where you found it. If you keep doing that, sooner or later someone’s going to catch another national record blue cat in Texas waters.
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