How it started…

Hey everyone, my name is Austin Higgins, and I am the founder of NC Catfishing. I wanted to take just a minute to introduce myself and share how this whole journey started.

Growing up, hunting and fishing were always a huge part of my life. Fall and winter revolved heavily around hunting, and the rest of the year was spent at the creek, local ponds, and when I was lucky, on one of our many rivers here in the state. I was fortunate enough to have a grandfather, father, and uncle who all played an integral role in my passion for being on the water, proving how important it is to take a kid fishing.

Hunting and fishing were always a part of my life, but through the years, life become busy with hectic work schedules and other priorities.  It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I started to develop a passion for catfishing.  Until then, catfishing was nothing more than a hot summer night on the river or creek bank with friends. That all changed on a boring night at home when I decided that I was going to go sit on the riverbank and catfish.  I didn’t even catch a fish that night, but that was the turning point for me. While my daytime fishing opportunities were limited, catfishing would give me a chance to fish, even at night.

After that, the rest was history, with more and more nights being spent on the river. During that time, a buddy of mine would often come catfishing with me.  We created a Facebook and Instagram page called Rock Bottom Cats so we could share some of the fish we caught. Not too long after that, we created a YouTube channel. Once we started sharing content on social media, I realized there weren’t any active groups to help folks trying to catfish here in North Carolina as a whole. With that, NC Catfishing was created.

NC Catfishing is for both new and veteran anglers. I want to give folks a place to not only share their catches but I also aim for it to be a tool that can be used to learn. I never imagined that the group would evolve into the community that it has today, nor could I have predicted the great relationships that would come from it.

Today, it is one of the largest state-specific catfish groups and it’s only getting bigger!  I’m excited to see what’s in store for NC Catfishing’s future and I’m thrilled to bring nccatfishing.com to you as well.  There are a lot of things to come in this new chapter that will help anglers both new and old.