Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Catfishing Time

For big blues cut shad has no peer. Crappie heads and ribs saved after filleting a mess works well too. Get a cast net and learn to use it if you’re going to get serious about catching big blues, fresh bait is a must to consistently catch fish.

Flatheads, live shad, live crappie, live perch in that order the bigger the baitfish the bigger the flathead. I have a couple places I can take a jigging pole and a bucket and gather a night’s worth of bait in a few minutes for flatheading up at the river.

Channel cats will eat all manner of garbage and can be caught on about anything pretty consistently. I don’t usually fish for channel cats intentionally.

Nightcrawlers and raw shrimp keep our freezer stocked. Deer season is over tomorrow so going to start getting ready for some catfishing before long. We catch most strolling the shoreline and around deeper piers using a slip bobber anywhere from 2-10 feet.

had good luck with chunks of slim Jims.

you can wrap and tie the stink bait in a chunk of worn out nylons. what i found worked best for Cats was Shrimp.

All right. Thanks. I've wondered about them and have used them with good results on bedded gills.

We are missing your pictures.

I wish you would explain how you do that jigging pole trick.

Squirrel livers have been best for me. Catch about 3 cats before they are falling apart.

Buy teeny tiny ice fishing jigs online since ice fishing isn’t on the menu here. Go to my Grandad’s pond that for some reason has nothing but skillions of perch and bullfrogs, or to deep pools in the little slow moving creek out west of town and dip the little jig in and try to hold it still. In about 10 seconds it’ll have a small sunfish of some kind on it. Little cricket hooks with a pinch of worm or hopper leg work too but you have to find and keep bait, when the rubber tail gets worn out on the ice fishing jigs I clip a tail off a Jester crappie jig and use it.

These work really well for me for catching little bait fish out of a ditch by my house. Cut about half the head off it, then stick it (the remainder, not the head bit) on a 2-3mm ice jig and they work even better for creek chubs/shiners/etc than they do for panfish through the ice 😁

They're pretty tough, too, so one generally catches a lot of fish before it gets pulled off or torn up.

Ran into an old fellow one day.. started shooting the bull with him for a few minutes…

He river fished. Mostly Trotlines and jugs.

Said all he used was Zote soap.




I favor catalpa worms.

I’ve switched to circle hooks.

Though creek fishing. A “big” catfish is 2 or 3 pounds. Channel cats.

I’ll use 1/0 or 2/0. Nothing bigger.


I have good luck with these hooks.

I think catalpa worms are locally extinct, haven't seen a single one on a catalpa tree in years. Used to be thick in the spring, then poof, they just vanished. 🤷‍♂️

Pig liver.

The Kid knows. Fresh cut shad for the big blues. Live perch for the flats. Pretty much anything for channels. Good luck!!!

Can't believe it took so long for somebody to mention wrapping the bait in a chunk of pantyhose- - - -I've been doing that for over 30 years. Don't be stingy- - - -big fish eat big meals- - - -golf ball to tennis ball size baits for the big ones. Give the kids a can of worms and put them to catching small shellcrackers and bluegills, then use them (the fish, not the kids) for catfish bait.

This past summer my three best catfish baits were; Raw chicken, Fresh/frozen cut bunker, and raw shrimp. I switched out to heavier gear due to my success catching larger fish. My largest blue was over 40 pounds. Many were in the 20-30plus range. It was not easy since, I was fishing from a sit in Kayak in moving water. Not a lot of room to work with. This spring I will be ready to go. i just need water temps to warm up.

Hotrod. How many giant cats could you catch per kid?¿?

I tried the primo in the late fall.

I don’t think anything was biting.

But man that stuff stays on better than any of the others.

Wicked sticky only would last 1/3 of the time that the primo stayed on!

surgical mesh works better than old stockings when using liver. The mesh keeps the liver on the hook butt it still looks, feels and tastes like liver.

An old timer I fished with years ago would
use Limburger cheese mashed up with chovies or
sardines in a mason jar. He would take a piece of
sponge and put it on his hook and drop it in that
jar and pack it full of love. Gawd dogs that schit
was stanky. We caught big ugly fat cat fish with
that bait. Live perch or blue gill will catch big cats too….