Pound for pound, the most vicious predator in our household.

Everyone’s heard of catfishing, especially here in the South. Not many people know though how superior fly fishing for cats is when compared to conventional tackle. I have to admit, until this year I had never taken up cat fishing. I had plenty of excuses: I didn’t have the right gear; I didn’t know where to go; I didn’t know how.

Early in the pandemic, I spent a lot of time fishing local bass ponds, and on one of our trips a dumped kitten came out of the barn. We tried to catch it but my 7 weight wasn’t up to the task. We finally returned with a can of cat food. There I was, an accomplished fly angler, reduced to fishing bait.

This year I finally invested in serious equipment for cat fly fishing, and I have to say, while it works like a charm, it’s really not up to the challenge of fighting big cats. For all the money Orvis makes on its cat beds and annual cat catalogue, you’d think that they could come up with more durable catfishing gear. And Orvis isn’t alone. All of the manufacturers need to go back to the drawing board.

You don’t need a hook for cats. The lines are fluorescent green, and the leaders another few feet of level white or fluorescent orange. Cats will attack the line and leader from as far away as 10 feet, so you don’t need to cast all that well, though the retrieve can be critical. It’s a little bit like the whole discredited business of fishing for gar with shredded nylon rope. You tangle the cat up in the line and then you land them with a net.

If you can get close enough, dapping works well. For catch and release, be careful to spend as little time as possible with the cat in the water.

Here’s my first complaint with the manufacturers: the lines and leaders, which are braided polyester yarn, don’t last. These are toothy critters. I doubt that our first leader lasted more than a week before it was shredded and swept up by the Roomba. The line was destroyed within a month. Maybe wire leader would work? Maybe the line could be made out of Kevlar?

You’d think that the manufacturers would know that house cats are vicious predators, and that they represent a challenge to the very best equipment. Tooth and claw, pound for pound, the typical house cat can do more damage than a barracuda. Just look at our couch. A barracuda never did that to our couch.

And cat rods are very specialized. A lot of cat fishing is done indoors, so the standard 9-foot rod doesn’t work unless your indoors is bigger than ours. The specialty cat rods are short and whippet thin to achieve a decent cast, and that means there’s no room for a fighting butt. They cast great, but they’re wholly inadequate for fighting and playing the target species. When it hits, a cat can destroy even the best rods. It’s heartbreaking to see a valuable Orvis Helios 3 cat rod shatter after a violent take.

We’ve used Scientific Anglers cat rods as well, and are on our second SA rig. The first was just as much a failure as the Helios. Within a month the tip had broken and the line was shredded. You want to know something odd? I could swear that the SA line is exactly the same as the Orvis line. It’s like they colluded or something. If I knew any antitrust lawyers, I’d feel obligated to let them know.

Still, I’m sure Orvis will honor it’s 25-year guarantee on the rod, and I’ve got to say, there’s just nothing more fun than cat fishing. If the conditions are right, I can even roll cast to a cat from my bed before I go to sleep at night, though I haven’t been able to land one yet. I think I need to keep a landing net on my bedside table. When this whole catching a fish in every state thing is done, I may have to go back to every state to catch a cat.

Dogs, by the way, aren’t nearly as good of prey as cats. You can put the fly right on the dog’s nose and they only look at you perplexed. My dogs look at me perplexed a lot.