Anyone fish or know much about catfish pay lakes ? Joined a pay lake buy sell trade ground on FB because they have some cool stuff in there but after a bit I got curious and started YouTubing. Well I'm not gonna get into how I feel about the whole "trophy" pay laked thing, but can someone explain to me why alot of these people are literally using 10-12' surf rods for fishing these little "lakes" that are like 50yd across ? Like I watching some so these videos and these guys are making casts with these set up that I can make really really easily with a 6' rod.

Pay lakes? Like, you pay a fee just to fish? That’s ridiculous. No way would I pay to fish from shore in a lake.

It’s bad enough I gotta pay for a fishing license

There is one close to me I have never been to. I have been tempted to take my boys because I don't have many places I know of to take then to fish since we moved to the farm and I don't know many people around there. But it two expenses.
I promise they would not be using anything more than a 25$ Walmart pole if I did take them

What kind of a place do you live in where its too expensive to take a kid fishing?
You should move for the kids sake.

That is unfathomable.
Paying for a fishing licence is bad enough.

Depends on where you live and circumstances. I'm fortunate in that a Tman member from here has a couple of large ponds that he lets me take my grandkids fishing at. If not for that, I really don't know where I could take them locally. I don't have a boat, so bank fishing is what we do.

In case you missed it ( and it seems like you did) this thread is about pay lakes. So I was talking about the cost of the pay lake being to expensive. Close to $100 for the family to go if I remember right.

That said it may not be expensive if you figured in the price of gas to drive 2 hrs each way and the time to get to my few old fishing spots that have not been sold off or gated up when comparing the two.

So originally what it was you had these place which farm raise channels that you could go and have a good time at pay a fee and catch you limit. Was something alot of peoel did with there kids or the elderly. Well now you have alot of place that are "trophy" pay lakes. Same set up usually but instead of just farm raised channel they catch or buy large trophy size blues and flats from commercial guy catching them from public water to stick them in there's ponds. Alot of them have fb pages and the will show weekly stockings of these fish in pretty big numbers in the ponds which are pretty small


From my understanding alot of these place don't really even feed or stock alot of forage in the lakes so their more prone to bite quick because a "hot" lake makes them more money. Not to mention alot of them have slots or tags where a certain size or type of fish will land you a cash prize. One video I saw had prizes up to $750 for a 50+ lbs fish .
Apparently there are some pretty nice ones that are set up nice lots of feed and oxygenation but apparently for these trophy lakes thats the exception more then the rule. Most have no cover oxygen systems really their just over glorified stock tanks

Like fishing in a big goldfish bowl. Fun for little ones but any healthy able bodied man should lose his man card and bait the hooks.

if any were here i would happily catch and sell them fish

I pay property taxes, that's all I pay. Wife has me cleaning fish right now three nights a week. Michigan has enough lakes one doesn't have to "pay" to fish, other than a license. Back in 1956 Dad saw some land for sale on one of his best fishing holes. He bought it and built a cabin. I now live here and picked up the land around me. Good fishing a short cast from the front door.

...and that about sums it up for almost everyone in the north part of the country.

A lot of the pay lakes in PA, you don't have to follow the PAFBC rules. No license needed, you pay by the pound, etc etc.

The one up near where PCR2 lives has a rule that you must keep all fish caught. So there's a lot of breaking off of fish when people realize the fish they have on is smaller. The older Japanese lady that sits on the balcony and yells at people for releasing fish is pretty comical. She yells at you in Japanese, but all the swear words are English.

Most of these places are also trout farms used for stocking local streams and lakes. You're not exactly fishing in the raceways, but dang near close.

As to why anyone would fish them?? There are people who are willing to pay money to stay away from the crowds that are trout season in PA. It's also a good stop for the tourists who are travelling across the state and need a break from the screaming wife and kids.

Pay ponds I have seen in the Stuarts Drafts, VA area. Not catfish. Trout is what's advertised.

It's a big thing around me. Mostly carp ponds though but some catfish. They have tournaments about every night of the week on them. It's usually a good spot for the local crackheads to hang out

For reference for the northern folk, "lake" is the wrong word for this. It's just a pond that someone stocks with carp or catfish and then charges people to come catch them. It's not state owned or maintained like our lakes, which are free

Terrible waste of big flathead catfish. Doomed to die a slow death in a gravel lined fishbowl. But the paylake cowboys really think they are doing something when they catch one

So anyway back to my original question, WHY THE SURF RODS ?

So you can man handle a big fish and not get it tangled in someone else's line.

I worked with a guy who was pretty big into pay lakes and he would travel around to a lot of different ones. My guess is they have the same setup for all lakes? Either that or based off if the guy i worked with is any indication, they really have no concept of actual fishing and just assume the bigger the rod the better kinda like the city guys that think the higher your truck sits off the ground the more h.p.