Sinclair Dock Fishing For Cats

Randy Davidson catches lots of Lake Sinclair catfish—both eating-sized fish and some drag-peeling big cats—and he never leaves the dock.

A lazy, yawning, stretching sun is warm, finally, as it peers across treetops bordering Crooked Creek. Winter’s bite has clung on tenaciously this year. After months of chilling winds, rain and more rain, Lake Sinclair almost feels like home again on this Monday, the second week of April. The old faded vest that has weathered so many trips afield begins soaking up rays as only fleece can. Perched on a floating dock, I contentedly find myself thinking that there are worse ways to spend a morning…

There have been many here. Over 50 years of mornings. If it swims in Lake Sinclair, I’ve likely either caught it or tried hard to. But never like this. By the way, where’s the boat?

Oh, well. Randy Davidson doesn’t need one. He has a dock.

Fishermen know how it is: if I could just get to that little cove or that long point or that standing timber or that bridge piling…

Davidson, decked out in boots, jeans and his ever-present cowboy hat, fishes off his dock. Exclusively. But he has become a master at hauling in Sinclair catfish. Very large ones. And although that’s his specialty, crappie and other panfish are also on his list. In fact, there’s seldom a dull moment when he’s on that dock with big rods set out in their hand-built holders. He’ll be tossing wigglers to the rock or the log—both of which occupy prominent roles in the overall scheme of each day’s fishing. About the time he hooks a bream, TWANG and SCREECH goes a catfish rod…

His day begins with a 5 a.m. weather and fishing report on Facebook’s Lake Sinclair Fishing Forum. It includes barometric pressure, wind direction, water conditions, etc.

“When I started doing this, it was just meant to help people out with their fishing, but more and more people kept messaging me about it, so I kept at it, and it has kept growing,” Davidson says. “I constantly hear people saying they’re not catching here or there and the fish are not biting, but you have to take what the weather and lake conditions give you and adjust to that.”

That’s where the log and rock come in. Each is a Zebco flip off to the right of the dock. Panfish are constantly around them, and a day of catfish fishing begins with catching enough to cut up for bait. Davidson will also use a cast net to gather gizzard shad when possible, but the log and rock are ready-made larders. The rock is roughly half the size of your pickup hood, a few feet off the bank, and on this morning water laps gently just over the top of it. Constantly.

And that poses a problem.

“I like to see the water coming in when they shut the dam off and it first starts rolling,” Davidson says. “When the dam is shut off, the water backs up and gets higher and covers that rock. It’s the same characteristics of the tide in the ocean. They usually push and pull every morning roughly from nine to eleven and in the afternoons from five to eight. But you can’t ever tell because it’s not necessarily an everyday thing. It’s the same when it’s going out; more and more of the rock shows up. I think fish feed upstream, and when the water is moving, the fishing is always better. I don’t worry about the wind or boats flying around kicking up wakes or anything like that. In fact, sometimes when a boat comes by, I’ll get a quick bite. As long as that water is moving…”

The water was as still as Sinclair can be the day I was there. And, I discovered later, for the next two days. But that doesn’t mean the fish weren’t biting at all.

Dock fishing for big catfish is a waiting game and not a very complicated one. But there are rules. And a couple of them surprised me. Especially the timing.

If I’m not on the water at gray day, the feeling is that I’m running late. Not so with Randy Davidson. Setting up this trip, he said roll in about 9 a.m. And this is his show.

“I’ll get out here early because I don’t sleep but about four hours a night anyway,” he said. “But that’s to do the fishing report and start catching bait. I never do too well early in the morning on catfish. They bite well at night, then start usually about 10:30 to 11 in the morning. From 10:30 to 2:30 in the afternoon is my favorite time.”

The rig he uses reminded me of my striper outfit, and indeed the one rod I took was perfect for this type of fishing. It’s an old Zebco Hawg Seeker with a stout, 6-foot rod and 30-lb. test line.

Davidson prefers 17-lb. test, the better to play a fish with. He also uses heavy-weight Penn reels, which can be spooled for saltwater, but he prefers to play, not drag, a cat in.

“You get a good cardio workout with 17-lb. test,” he says. “I have the drag set so that a fish can’t break the line. He’s either going to run all the line out or I’m going to get him in. I love to hear that drag sing. They’ll either take a left and head up Crooked Creek or a right and streak off toward Crooked Creek Marina. A lot of these fights are over 20 minutes. When it’s over, you feel like you’ve won the game and are ready to go to the house.”

His best catfish off this dock is a 40-pounder, and on the day that one was caught, he had seven others that totaled more than 100 pounds. Now you know what we’re dealing with.

On that 17-lb. test is a 3/4- to 1-oz. sinker and a 4/0 Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp hook. Bait up with something that was swimming off the rock or log a few minutes ago and hurl it as far as possible out into the cove. It will drop to the bottom in roughly 8 feet of water while the rod butt is inserted into its holder.

Then wait. And Randy, who can’t be still, tosses to the panfish and tells me of a lifetime of fishing.

Slow down and wave if you see Randy and his wife Sheila Kay on their Crooked Creek dock. You can’t miss Randy wearing his cowboy hat.

Born in Macon, the now 67-year-old worked in Florida phosphate mines for years, near Bartow. He recalls seeing Martin and Dance filming shows in those pits, and tells of mullet fishing around Bradenton, bridge fishing in Tampa, on and on. His wife, Sheila Kay, loves it as much as he does, especially wading for mullet. She catches cats just like Randy and joined us on the dock for the day.

“Florida just about ruined me fishing, with the pits and rivers and ocean, but getting back to Sinclair has been like Heaven to me,” he related. “I never knew there were fish like this in here. I catch an awful lot of cats and throw most of them back so that we can catch them again tomorrow.”

He also has a couple of large wire baskets tied to the dock and will keep fish in there for a brief stay if someone needs a mess. His church crowd is one of the main beneficiaries.

After an hour or so of relaxing conversation and soaking up sun, pandemonium breaks out.

Four rods are mounted in their holders, and it’s the one on the far right that is bouncing toward the lake surface. Davidson, who is about as quick as a terrorized house cat, sails from his seat and instantly feels the singe of screaming line across a thumb. He sweeps the rod back and feels the fish for maybe 10 seconds…

“I just didn’t hit him hard enough with the hook,” he says, face full of chagrin as the empty Eagle Claw is reeled in. “That was the one, though; that was the one I wanted you to see. Man, he wore my thumb out with that line. We would have been here for a while catching that fish.”

As the air temp continues to rise from a morning low of 50 into the 80s, water levels unfortunately never change on the rock. I’ve retrieved my rod from the truck just to give it some exercise, setting a bait out far to the left, away from the others. It requires 10 minutes for a cat to remind me that I can either write down interview notes or catch fish as Sheila Kay frantically informs me that the striper special is presently bent double. Randy beats me to it, but the fish obviously felt a little hook tingle and left in search of a better offer.

He puts several more panfish into the submerged basket over the next hour or so, ensuring some fine table fare. We eventually watch a pontoon boat—complete with audience—ease into the cove and idle by 75 or so yards out. Time to put on a show.

On this occasion, when the fish snatched, Davidson snatched back! The hook bit deep, and that was one displeased catfish. He proceeded to make that clear by rampaging from one side of the dock to the other, under, over and around the other rods. But Randy, who obviously has played this game before, stayed with him. Accustomed to fishing by himself, he turned down an offer for some help with the net and finally scooped the arm-length channel cat in and welcomed him to the dock—drawing applause from the passing boat.

Davidson loves catching these fish, but he also enjoys sharing his knowledge with others.

“You’ll see a ton of stuff on the Fishing Forum, and I post on it almost every day,” he says. “Sheila Kay is constantly catching a lot of fish right along with me, and you never know whether you’ll tie into small or large ones. Varying the size of the bait can make a difference, but not always. This lake is full of fish, enough for everybody, and especially with catch and release.”

And possibly the best thing? You don’t even need a boat!