Semisupervised support vector machine (S3VM) algorithm mainly depends on the predicted accuracy of unlabeled samples, if lots of misclassified unlabeled samples are added to the training will make the training model performance degrade. Thus, the cuckoo search algorithm (CS) is used to optimize the S3VM which also enhances the model performance of S3VM. Considering that the cuckoo search algorithm is limited to the local optimum problem, a new cuckoo search algorithm based on chaotic catfish effect optimization is proposed. First, use the chaotic mechanism with high randomness to initialize the nest for range expansion. Second, chaotic catfish nest is introduced into the effective competition coordination mechanism after falling into the local optimum, so that the candidate's nest can jump out of the local optimal solution and accelerate the convergence ability. In the experiment, results show that the improved cuckoo search algorithm is effective and better than the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and the cuckoo search algorithm on the benchmark functions. In the end, the improved cuckoo search algorithm is used to optimize semisupervised SVM which is applied into oil layer recognition. Results show that this optimization model is superior to the semisupervised SVM in terms of recognition rate and time.