Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best Bait for Catfish

there are cats alot bigger then 60lbs in the james. friend of mine caught a 78lber a few years ago.

That was always the problem with soap. It was hard to keep on a hook.

We would keep soap on the hooks until the next time we ran the lines, 12 hours or so give or take, that was long enough.

We could never get it to last that long. Personally I don't think dad was puttin' it on right. But I sure as he** wasn't gonna say anything. He fished that river looooong before my time! LOL! When it did stay it caught nice channels. Then again it may just have been the way the soap was.

He had a grasshopper box made out of an old dynamite box. We'd go out in the salt cedars with a Coleman lantern after dark, and catch grasshoppers. We seines bait too. We hardly ever spent money on bait. Except when he bought the soap.

My neighbor here was a real river rat. Spent all his time on the river. It was always hellgrammites for channels and perch for yellow cats with him. And he would drag home the fish. In my pre-marriage days he kept me from starving! LOL seems I'd tend to always show up at their house about grocery time!

Them folks are long gone. I miss em.

Why do you city slickers use a kitchen match to turn catalpa worms inside out? Dang...we just bite the head off and you can then use the hook to turn em inside out while hooking them.

I'm a refined redneck though...I spit the head out and don't swallow.

This is the stuff for any catfish but flatheads. If you have Mexicans araound, you have Zote.

http://www.zote.com.mx/english/about.htm

I remember reading in one of the Spanish priest's journals from the 1680's along the Rio Grande, that there was this one Indian neophyte who would always bring him a piltote, their word for a yellow cat. He stated it would be tied by the head to the saddle pommel, and tail would be dragging on the ground.

My biggest is in the 80s. There have been a few "triple-digits" caught.

blues on trot lines Asian carp cutt bait ,perch for flatheads bank poles Missouri river,channels any thing will work.

Well if you ever want an official photographer I�d also pay for your gas and food.

In any case, congrats, that�s really impressive.

4 or 5 cans of Kennel Ration dumped into a burlap sack with a brick in it. Tie the top closed with a piece of rope long enough to reach the top of the water from the bottom of the lake. tie a 1 gallon milk container to the other end of the rope & toss it into the lake. wait a few hours until the catfish start pushing on the sack to get at the dog food. toss your line where the milk container marks the spot. put a little peanut butter on a hook and you have an endless supply of catfish.

Possibly a difference in water? We always fished backwater eddy edges for channels on top, and the water flow was never much. Only pushed it far enough on to cover the barb, but not split or crack the soap.
If they didn't bite there was usually a dab of it left the next time we checked lines.

We had grasshopper boxes and did the same, but not out of old dynamite boxes... just plywood and wire mesh. Double layer of inner tube on top lapped over each other so you could snag, stick your hand down in, flip em off, and pull hand back through without loosing em.

Seined a lot over the yeras too. Unfortunately now the Colorado has so much moss etc.. you can't even seine for helgramites hardly. Way too much moss in the net to find them. That sucks.

But there are a bazillion shad down here now which we used to not have so many of. Times change.

We've bought soap, but I really enjoyed making my own, but have not done it for years now.

Getting time to fish the last years has been the main issue, and as such haven't caught anything more than a 54 about 5 years back, and only went once this year for a 15 and a 12 pound yellow.

Did you read the link? Says made with Citronella oil. IIRC thats same as in some mild bug repellants.
HMMMM Wash outdoor clothes in it and see?

I don't think I"ve seen it here, but we have a mexican lineman that gets it for us when he goes back down south...I might have to look harder at HEB or Walmart though...

Anyone have a clue if my guess re repellant properties might be right? Even if it keeps the gnats at bay a bit better would be nice.

That sounds like a lot of fun, espcially for high-volume fishing action with kids.

Growing up a farmer down the road had a farm pond filled with channel cats he raised for sale.He let me catch some a few times a year,when they were reacy to net foe sal. he fed them pelleted fish food and the best way to catch the was to scrape the paint off a popping bug and throw it in with a handful of feed. 8 pound cat on a flyrod fun funfun

Back when I was in college I had an aquarium. I bought a couple 3" blue cats at the pet store. When I was moving I asked my sister in law if I could put them in their large tank until I got mine setup. They agreed. The very first night they ate half their fish. Oops!

Similar we sour maize in a bucket. Take it out by rocks on the lake in the morning, dole it out wiht a scoop and start fishing right away. Doesn't take them long to smell and start feeding. Usually fill a cooler half full fairly quickly. Worms on a hook under a small bobber...

put the shank in a vice bend with a big set of klein's 3/8.
Important-sharpen and re-sharpen

If it had been a flathead it would have eaten all of them.

Birddog65: I used to have lots of luck with a worm hook baited with one or two small power bait marshmallows and then a medium size worm.
I used a smallish bobber and a medium sized clamp on sinker about a foot above the hook/bait.
Best of luck to you.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy