I'm not a novice when it comes to catfishing but what is your preferred bait? Typically, I like to tightline with a bell sinker and 1 or 2 hooks.
I have some land in East Tx and a small river is our border. It has a good many channel and blue cats. I've caught them on night crawlers but they seem to like chicken livers much more. But those dang things are so hard to bait up, without falling off or melting in your hands. Each time I use them, I think there's GOT to be a better way. Cut bait didn't produce much for me either. Any ideas are appreciated.
-Thanks!
put the chicken livers in a peice of panty hose or cheese cloth tie it closed hook it your good to go.
...Why didn't I think of that. Thanks!
When using livers, I prefer using rooster livers over chicken livers. They seem tougher to me and stay better on the hook. I use different types of bait, sometimes I'll stop and buy a tub of shrimp (3.50-4.00 bucks) at the grocery store. I cut each shrimp up into 3 pieces and fish for a good while. I wore the blues out on shrimp one morning.
Groundhog liver works great.
I'm betting turkey liver would too
Sausage. Either kielbasa or any cheap smoked sausage. Works great on trot lines and jugs.
Live Perch ! :icon_thumright:
:newmascot:
Cutbait Shad if I feel like catching them. If not big minners.
Quote from: stone road turkey calls on July 11, 2011, 02:09:50 PM
put the chicken livers in a peice of panty hose or cheese cloth tie it closed hook it your good to go.
absolutely!!! makes it much easier.
Also, I have heard gold fish, live work very well.
Quote from: stone road turkey calls on July 11, 2011, 02:09:50 PM
put the chicken livers in a peice of panty hose or cheese cloth tie it closed hook it your good to go.
Yeah, Thats how we do it. Cast that stuff a country mile LOL no worries. We also do well on cut bluegills and the heads too.
I also hated the hassle of chicken liver,but loved the results...I started laying them on a garbage bag with a fan blowing on them out in my shed...They dry and turn leathery in about 24 hours...much easier to fish with after that.
A friend of mine told me about deer meat. I use the stew meat and it works dang good if it still has the blood in it. You have to re-bait it ever so often, especially after the blood is gone out of it. By the way, you CAN NOT sling it off.
I like using Shrimp that has been sitting out in the sun for two days.
Chicken liver that has been in the sun for 2 days
Catdaddy has the answer.................. ;)
HC
Live crawfish are hard to come by in my area, but I have caught a number of cat that had them in their stomach. As have been mentioned, cut bait, shrimp, worms. All will work at times. The last time I went about two weeks ago, cut bait or shrimp didn't work. Never used liver, as much as I have heard about it.
It's allot of work catching them, but soft craws are THEE bait for cats. Only at night though cause everything else like pan fish tear em up.
In So cal I've been using craft sandwich cheese dipped in garlic. Here is a picture from the one I caught a few days ago,
(http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee443/socalturkeyman/catfish.jpg)
live and dead small suckers and shiners, you can also cut them for cut bait, as mentioned soft shelled crawfish but sometimes they are hard to come by....chicken livers, and good old cheese bait.. I like Doms and dip bait I like sonny's ... If you can get them small frogs and whole smelt with guts in them work very good for big cats..
Turkey liver stays on the hook alot better than chicken liver does it is tougher it seems. We use that alot up here. The panty hose thing works well too.
I heard fresh Cooter was the Cats meaow.
TRKYHTR
QuoteI heard fresh Cooter was the Cats meow.
Oh fer sure, love Cooterville. :TooFunny: :TooFunny:
ever try stink bait? get it at a bait shop
A method I learned years ago in CA fishing pressured small lakes for cats.
Small shrimp with tails, a treble hook and a crimp on lead weight. First crimp the lead weight on the hook shank or carefully on the line right above the hook eye. Place the shrimp around the hook shank and push it over the hook points so all three points are in the shrimp but not all of the way through. Cast this out into the water, leave your bail open and watch the line. When the line starts to un spool count to 5 and set the hook. Works great on cats that like to spit your bait out.
A buddy and I generally run limb lines every spring when the water rises on a nearby creek. This year the water never got up high enough. We have used chicken liver, cut up chicken meat, cut bream, shrimp, shad and night crawlers. Seems we had good results from the shrimp and cut bream. We don't have easy access to shad here close, but we used to use it drift fishing on a portion of the Arkansas River. When the generators were running on a dam near Wister, OK, we could get all the shad we could use in a single cast of a shad net. Just catching the shad was a blast... I miss those days...
I like to catch shad in a throw net, then cut them up for bait. Shad stays on the hook better than liver or worms and the cats love it. Pig liver will stay on the hook better than chicken liver. Catfish liver works great as well, the next big catch, save them when you gut them.
A sponge dipped in stinky cheese works good as well, but your wife will not care for it much at the end of the day.
My uncle taught me this. We would shoot carp with our bows (which is a blast) then we would gut them and put the guts in an old butter dish. Leave outside for 24 hours. Put it on your hook and your good to go. This is all the gut not just certain parts. Its kind of gross though.
Hot dogs, cheap hot dogs. Have also had luck with catalpa worms and prong.
Most guys that fish for the big ones here in MO use cut bait from live fish like shad. This guy used a cut piece from an Asian carp and look what he caught. They don't get much bigger than this.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2010/07/missouri-fisherman-lands-record-breaking-130-pound-catfish.html
Back when dad and I used to set cane poles in the evening and run then the next morning we always had the best luck with live sunperch or bluegill sained out of a creek. There's something about the sunperch working better than the bluegill though. My buddy and his dad liked to use goldfish.
Quote from: Hardcore on July 11, 2011, 09:22:45 PM
Catdaddy has the answer.................. ;)
HC
Quote from: TRKYHTR on July 12, 2011, 10:03:20 AM
I heard fresh Cooter was the Cats meow.
TRKYHTR
I've been known to catch a catfish or two in my day--so here is my bait advise.
First all of all, if they are really"sho nuff" biting, you can catch a catfish on just about anything. Although I have never tried it myself, I have heard of people catching catfish on pieces of Ivory Soap.
What bait is best depends on several factors. Two of the most important factors is time of year and species you are trying to catch. For example, if you want to catch a yellow cat A.k.a. Flathead--you have to have live bait like a pond perch, shad or goldfish.
When I am jug fishing in the summer, I have to bait a lot of hooks in a short amount of time. I use cut pieces of hotdogs soaked in my secret formula "Fresh Cooter" a trademark of Catdaddy Inc.
I have never liked to use liver myself--to messy, too hard to stay on the hook and it seems you either have way too much gobbed up on the hook or you wind up with just a bit that stays on.
If I was fishing with a rod and reel on the bottom as you have described--the best bait by far--in my opinion----would be------night crawlers. Worm them on the hook in several places so those worm juices leak out.
Good luck on your catfishing. As hard as it seems to believe, due to all the work I have had to do on my cabin flood renovation--I have not been fishing one time this year. The last time that happend was when I was 4 and they wouldn't let me leave the yard.
I can tell you from my personal experience that pond perch or bluegill won't work near as well as creek perch or bluegill. That's something my dad taught me. And I have seen it firsthand for myself. He always said a creek perch or bluegill will just move around a lot longer and also they tend to be tougher and stay alive longer when transporting them in buckets to bait your hooks.
Lots of people use cut hotdogs soaked in cheery koolaid & garlic, or soaked in anise oil and garlic around here