the best way to catch big cats is with cut bait, or live chubs. Also you can chum up the water to get them stirred up. Where I' m at we have a lot of blues and Channel cats. A lot of people take fun noodles and cut them into pieces. Then they run 50lb line through one end of them, and throw out up to thirty. When the cats hit the noodles stand up on the end, you have to have a boat for this. That is the best way to fill up your freezer, but I usually care about the fight. The way I fish for them is at night and I take part of some pantyhose and put either chicken hearts or chicken livers to chum the water, you can also use the guts of the fish that you caught earlier. Then I run a couple of hooks a foot or two apart on a leader attached to a swivel. I put some cut up shad or bream that I have caught earlier to those. If you want big cats you have to use big baits, so I use heavy hooks, and very heavy line 50 to 80lbs. That is just the way my family and I do it. There are tons of ways, you can do it. Good luck. Also you might want to invest in a saltwater rod, or a catfish rig. Short heavy duty rods with large reels. Hope I helped.