shallow river

i fish the Calcasieu River here in LA and the part of the river that i fish is fairly shallow, anywhere from 3 to 15 feet deep with a few deep holes here and there on the bends of the river. most of the cats that we catch or on the small end, anywhere from 6 inches to 8lbs and most of them are caught on limb lines. just wondering if any of you fellas would have any pointers for catchin some bigger fish on rod and reel here on the river. i have caught a 17 pounder on a limb line before so i know that there are bigger ones in there. thanks a bunch!

Fish the deep holes in the day, preferably behind a current break of some sort (rock, lock, etc) At night fish around the holes in the 'drop offs' so to speak. If there are flatheads in that river use heavier gear, 7'MH-H rod, Ambassador 6500 or Penn 9 or 109 even 209s with 25lb line and drags pretty tight with live bluegill (if allowable), on a Carolina rig with a 4/0-7/0 hook right behind the dorsal.

Where ever there is panfish, there will be flatheads when the sun goes down :)

During the day, anchor up current from log jams and toss your bait near it, something big might take it IF they are there. If there is shade where some of those deep holes are, I'd go there too.

The banks of the river are full of bream, up and down the whole thing. All we use on trot lines and limb lines are live bream and they work pretty well but most of what we catch are blues and channels with the occasional flathead. We let our limb lines due the fishing at night but i will have to try some of that rod fishing after dark too.:)

what i do i look for the most condensed area with the most cover i like fishing 3 to 10 feet of water for flathead's i use whole live bluegill 40# stren magna flex and Cajun red 50# on Penn 309's and Penn 209's with 10 and 9 foot rods usually 10/0 kahle hooks and i bend the eye of the hook back with pliers half way in between straight up and straight back seems to help hook set and i also widen the offset a decent amount this helps hook set and i also use 1 to 2 foot leaders with 120# power swivels and Palomar knots and above the swivel usually a 3 to 5 oz no roll sinker depending on the current i like to use that set up when fishing shallow places where there is lots of cover the reason why such big stuff is because i hate re rigging i like to rip through snags and plus if you have a 30 or 40 pounder on sometimes it helps to pull them out of the cover i do use quite a few ambassadeurs 6500's and a couple 7000 c3's i usually use 30# on those when fishing places where theres not so many snags