June should be the official "Catfish Month" in Oklahoma.

And I don't mean a promotional campaign from the commercial catfish growers associations.

I mean that in June, all three popular species of whiskered cats are hugging the shorelines of lakes, ponds and streams with spawning in mind. And that makes them easy to catch.

The channel cats move in first. They are usually prowling the shorelines and looking for spawning sites as early as May.

The blues usually move in next, often mixed with the channel cats.

And the flatheads typically spawn last and may spawn well into the warmer summer months.

Now, before someone challenges me on that succession, I will tell you that I have a shelf full of fish taxonomy books that describe the physiology, distribution, habitat, feeding habits and spawning habits of North American freshwater fishes. Hardly any two agree on the same temperature ranges for preferred spawning temperatures for these three species of fish. They are all in the same general range -- from about 66 to 85 degrees, but one biologist's observations are sometimes contradicted by the observations of another.

My description of the process comes from more than 40 years of fishing in Oklahoma with rod and reel, trotline, jugline, and limbline.

In our next-door state, Arkansas, outdoor writer Keith Sutton, who is widely known for his expertise in catching catfish in North America and elsewhere, often writes that catching catfish during the spawning season is difficult. But I've found for many years that, because the spawning season finds catfish hugging shorelines and cavity-strewn areas, it is one of the easiest times of the year to find them. That's especially true for boatless anglers who fish primarily from the banks of lakes and streams.

Channel and blue cats do like to spawn in flowing waters, but they also spawn very successfully in reservoirs.

All three species are cavity nesters. Their preferred spawning habitats are undercut banks, rocky, bluff-like shorelines and similar places where they can find darkened hollows in which to deposit their eggs and protect them from predators.

Many Oklahoma reservoirs have steep and rocky shorelines that provide the kind of nesting habitat that these whiskered creatures seek. And the miles of riprapped shorelines along highways, near bridges and other shoreline areas provide even more nesting habitat and can be good places to find catfish during the spawning season.

I have not found that catfish are any more reluctant to bite a baited line when they're in the spawning areas. In fact, my experience is just the opposite. May, June and early July are good times to prowl the shorelines and catch catfish.

I am not a natural or live-bait fisherman most of the time. I prefer fishing with lures instead of sitting and waiting for a tight line to twitch or a bobber to be pulled under. But when fishing for catfish, of course, since catfish feed more with the aid of their taste and "smell" sensors than by sight, bait-fishing is the preferred technique.