Catfish Bait Recipes ?

[new_moonshiner]

I figure with the age group around here there should be some very skilled fishermen , And where Im located its River fishing time , so its about time to go after some big ole cats, and I thought it might be interesting to get some input on some proven catfish bait recipes.(new or old) Im always open to new Ideas when it come to fishing for cats .

[trthskr4]

I use brim as catfish bait, course you usually catch 20lb'ers or better but as long as you catch a few flat head cats it's worth it. Never was much on making bait, figured nature did it for me so why try to build a better mouse trap.

[punkin]

I know those things grow big, do they take lures?

Fishing used to be all i thought about...

Once i forgot about sex...

[new_moonshiner]

Fishing used to be all i thought about...
Once i forgot about sex...

lol I hear ya punkin... cats have been known to take lures im sure . Mostly around here its the waiting game , few friends sitting around on the bank at dusk, telling tall tales and bragging about the one that got away. ect.. while waiting for their secret recipe bait to kick in .. Im running out of tall tales so i figure I'll get busy and actually put some more effort in getting a couple of the big boys on the bank..

[punkin]

Hardly ever fish with bait anymore...cept maybe livies for marlin and mackeral and cobia and stuff...

When we head to the coast it's snapper on plastics, Gt's and pearlies as well...

Deepwater jigging for kingfish, and maybe a dead/live bait out the back for a mako.

We fish the Gorge country and the impoundments round here for Murray Cod. They are a beautiful fish, take lures readily and grow big in small streams where they can be caught on light line and cast lures, or also in the dams here. There's a few other natives that take lures round here too.


My mate has a 60 acre place on the river half an hour from home, we sit there sometimes and have a few beers at his fishing shack with some live bait, but mostly it's wandering his banks at night in the wee hours fishing surface lures on light line. Nothing better then a 20-40 lb fish smashing a surface lure at your feet in the dark as he showers you with water...

We fish catch and release for the cod, but bring a feed of bottom fish home from the coast

[goose eye]

oxtygon soap. cut bars into chunks.

get a couple cans of cheap dog food . put holes in can an throw into spot you gonna fish a couple days for you fish. big ones will take the can. but theyll stick around for couple days

just go noodlein. wear gloves


so im tole

[trthskr4]

I was fishing a lake in Sweetwater, Texas years ago with a buddy of mine for largemouth bass. I walked around a cove that you couldn't get the boat in and cast 7 times and caught 5, 4-5 lb. blue cats on a white and silver spinnerbait. Never heard of such and never heard of it again, they must have just been hungry. My grandad and I used to use Limberger cheese tied up in panty hose in our hoop nets in the rivers. We've also used liver mashed in with the cheese. I remember someones recipe with dogfood, liver, cheese and something else that I can't remember. He'd soak the dogfood in water until it got mushy, mix in the liver and cheese and put it in ice cube trays and I believe then he put in a jerky dehumidifier to get it to resolidify a bit to stay on the hook.

[Bob E]

liver and the moon light always did me well.

[trthskr4]

oxtygon soap. cut bars into chunks.

get a couple cans of cheap dog food . put holes in can an throw into spot you gonna fish a couple days for you fish. big ones will take the can. but theyll stick around for couple days

just go noodlein. wear gloves


so im tole

I've used ivory soap on silver hooks on a trotline before, you have to warm them up to be able to cut them though.

[Usge]

Chicken livers. Put it right on the bottom.

[Butch50]

Chicken livers work best of anything I ever tried unless you can seine up some crawdads. Fish on the bottom with the bale open on your reel, put a small twig across your line so you will see it moving - let me take the bait out about 5 feet or so and set the hook.

[BW Redneck]

My grandpa always took a ball of dough and mixed some chicken blood in it. Another: he took blood and let it sit in a baking sheet with sides. When the blood coagulated, he cut it into strips and hooked it onto his line.

If you're fishing on a moving body of water, try this. Start really far upstream of where you plan to fish, before the first light. Clean the first one you catch (can be any type), and throw the scales and the guts in the water. Wait an hour or two (g'pa always did chores during this time), then fish downstream of where you threw the scales in. The flashes and the fish blood drives 'em nuts.

[Old_Blue]

Ivory soap on trot lines

Chicken gizzards...they're tougher than livers and stay on better.
Mullet...1" squares with the skin intact. One piece will last all night but gets a lot of mud turtles.
Shrimp

The above three left in the sun all day, of course.

If you want a good ol' biggun , head down to the Santee lakes (Marion and Moultrie plus the diversion canal). Plenty of guides too if you want one. 30 pounders is a disappointment.


They got a real nice state park too.

[junkyard dawg]

In a pinch, peanut butter and dog food got stirred into anything else that smelled bad in the kitchen. garlic powder always went in there... sometimes bacon, mashed up into a dough. We always caught fish, but mostly carp. I've always had good luck with small slow frogs...

[new_moonshiner]

All excellent suggestions guys , some I have tried some I have yet to try , one of my favorites is chicken breasts cut in chunks with some strawberry coolaid and couple spoons of grape jelly just barely cover the meat with natural water not tap water and let it sit for 24 hours .. thanks for all the suggestions

[Dnderhead]

I do not know as it would be a bate but had one in in the branch ( used to be a saying if the fish lived the water was good to drink)
that cat loved hot dogs ---it would almost come on land for them

[blanikdog]

... We always caught fish, but mostly carp. ...

Do you eat the Carp? We have thousands of them in the lake but everyone says they are not worth eating and it's illegal to not kill them.

I always put the buggers back.

blanik

[Usge]

carp too bony (not much meat on them). Some people eat them anyway though.

[Harry]

Do you eat the Carp? We have thousands of them in the lake but everyone says they are not worth eating and it's illegal to not kill them.

I always put the buggers back.

blanik

http://www.frdc.com.au/species.php?f=46&v=f" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Butch50]

I have done some recent reading on eating carp. Lots of them in the Brazos river, and was wondering about eating them as I have always heard that they are a favored food fish in the Orient and in Russia. From what I have read, the best tasting ones are the smaller ones, smaller the better. That makes sense to me as that seems to be true of all the fish that I have eaten a lot of like bass and perch and channel catfish.

When cleaning them remove all of the darker meat and throw it away it has a strong oily flavor, only keep the white fillet meat. There will be bones in the fillets, but large enough to find without too much trouble. Lots and lots and lots of recipes on the web, just do a google search.

Soaking fish in milk overnight improves the flavor a lot - I suspect it would work on carp too. My grandmother used to do that with catfish to get the muddy taste out of the meat - I do it with all fish before I eat it now. Just cover the fish with milk and set it in the fridge overnight.

[alice]

Shoot a coupla rabbits , hang 'em from a tree overhanging a slow stretch of a river. When the maggots start falling from the carcasses you have a ready-made private fishing spot....

[blanikdog]

WHAT????????????? Waste a cuppla bloody good rabbits. Put the buggers in a slow cooker with some red wine and garlic and eat THEM!!



blanik

[BW Redneck]

Rather than use milk, my folks always used to brine them overnight in a mixture of salt, water, pepper, lemon juice, and brown sugar. Wash the pepper off right before you cook them. Made the stinkiest, chewiest catfish melt in your mouth and have little "fishy" taste to them, and were just slightly spicy. Never ate any home caught fish without it. Rabbits were always brined in salt and pepper for a night as well to "get the blood out".

[junkyard dawg]

we always killed carp. Grandpa told us that they were 'trash' fish and screwed up the game fish population. I've tossed hundreds of them onto the bank.

[Old_Blue]

I've eat carp.

Smaller ones out of the river we called suckers. Ain't too bad with the mud vein cut out and soaked in butter milk over night before deep frying, IMHO.

Lots of small bones though. Got to keep some loaf bread on hand just in case.

[Dnderhead]

hear in the US they were imported for raising in pounds as food, supposed to be good if raised in fresh /clean water as most things they got
loos and ! - I used to shoot them with bow that was fun.

[Tater]

Some here use goldfish as bait for catfish . Ive ate carp .Mud strip cut out and soaked in milk and or salted water. Easiest way Ive fix them is to pressure cook them and make fish cakes outta them . Carp pressure cooked and bones ain't a problem.

[Usge]

We ate brim, crappie, bass and catfish. The carp were mostly caught off the pilons in deeper, running currents of water (people fishing off the bridge). We lived in the back-water/slew, with a LOT of stumps. If you didn't know your way around...you'd end up on a stump for sure. It wasn't a place people vacationed. Had fish prepped many different ways, but more often than not our fish ended up fried. My fav was bass fillets, rolled in creole mustard and spices, then dipped in a cajun beer batter and fried. That and some good, fresh cole slaw and hush puppies. I caught many a catfish right off the muddy bank using a cut pole, a rock for a sinker, a stick for a bobber and chicken livers for bait. Those were some good times.

I've seen some monster cats come out of the channel using trot lines. But, more often than not...if it was anywhere close to where we were....you'd pull up a line full of fish heads. (snapping turtles would chew them right down to the eyeballs)

[Uncle Jesse]

seen a guy catch some big cats on chunks of salmon as bait. personally I'd rather eat the salmon.

any freshwater fish is edible as far as I know. now, some are probably more tasty than others but it pays to get a good recipe from someone who eats them regularly. catfish can be awful if prepared wrong, but if it's done right it's a very good fish.

[Usge]

After you've cleaned the catfish (you skin them...like a snake) soak the cleaned catfish in milk/buttermilk for a few hours. Dredge them in cornmeal seasoned with salt/pepper (and/or whatever seasonings you like...cajun seasonings are good) and deep fry them. Can't go wrong with that.