Catfish Bait

[kyratshooter]

I seem to remember my Grandpa using doughballs for catfish. Never found out his recipe.

Plain flour mixed stiff using vinillia extract and water. Roll it into balls and let it sit in the refregerator all night before use.

I caught some impressive catfish as a kid using this recipe. My brothers and I would ride our bikes to the river and come back with a catfish hanging from each side of the handlebars. Often their tails would be dragging the ground.

My Mom did not even object to the bait in the fridge, and she sure loved the fish.

[your_comforting_company]

My grandmother on my mom's side was a commercial fisher for a lodge down on the lake. She used bar soap on her box lines. looked like Ivory I think, but I'm sure she used whatever was cheap.
When we go for catfish, we generally just use wigglers, but back in my younger days (harhar) we'd use whatever we could get our hands on. slugs, catalpa worms, crickets, chicken (or other) livers and gut parts. Catfish aren't picky eaters, they're scavengers and opportunists. catch a few small bream, and either use them whole, or cut into pieces.

[Skinner]

or Ya Can Just Learn How to Noodle And Catch them With your Hand

[Sparky93]

or Ya Can Just Learn How to Noodle And Catch them With your Hand

I believe there has been discusion on this forum before on why not to noodle

[BH51]

Minnows, worms or fatty chicken skin, like you strip from chicken thighs & legs, stays on the hook best
and hooks with some'thin on'em works better than hooks with nothin' on'em....I wouldn't noodle for
catfish (flat'heads) for nothin in the world and I've heard tell some have used bait sprayed with WD-40.
Bait soaked in red food coloring dye is popular here also...especially blocking on the Mississippi river..BH51

[Sparky93]

Here are three reasons why I won't noodle

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[garethw]

Hi there
In recent years over here in continental Europe, "Marine halibut pellets" have been the top bait for our 'Wels' Catfish. These large 25mm oily, fishy pellets can be bouhgt in 25kg sacks and are easy to use. We simple drill a small hole in a couple of them and use a carp fishing style hair rig to attach to the braided hooklink. I use a size 2/0 heavy wire single hook. You need ti introduce a fair amount oçf bait into the water to get the fish feeding, but once on these baits they seem love them.
They are a very convenient bait as they keep for a long time, so you always have them ready. We've had fish to over 140lb on this method.
Regards
Gareth

[crashdive123]

I wonder if Mousefish would be good bait for Catfish?

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[Sparky93]

I imagine catfish would love them

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[wtrfwlr]

SPARKY-don't do that! I have to try and close my eyes tonight and that is all I'll see!

[oldtrap59]

I hit the river this morning at 6:30 so can give you this bait from fresh experience. Caught 5 keepers in about an hour and a half plus several that I released as I figured to let them grow a bit more. The keepers were nothing to brag about but from 2 to maybe 4 lbs. All caught on fresh clam found along a sandbar on the way to my fishing hole. I was also using a dip bait but all the fish I caught were on the clam meat. Have had good luck using small bream and catalpa worms over the years also.

Oldtrap

[Sparky93]

Sounds like you caught some good eat'n size catfish, clam baits definetly a new one on me.

[oldtrap59]

Sparky. I was raised by an oldtime cat fisherman. My dad lived all his life in eastern Iowa and I doubt there were many rivers he hadn't catfished over the years. I can't ever remember him buying his bait until his later years. He always kept a couple minnow traps in a local creek which we went to when a night on the river was planned. We also always had crawlers in the frig in the garage that we got out of the backyard. Like I told you about the clams, he always picked them up when he found them on the river. Some he would keep in the stock tank in the garage some he would put in mason jars for a couple days to sour. (both good ways to use them) Another sure bet for bait back then was when we butchered chickens. He often used the gut on a treble hook and also let the blood coagulate(spelling?) to be cut in strips and hung on a treble in a cheesecloth bag. Also used frogs when we could find them in the grass along the banks of the river. Crawfish was another natural bait we used when they were available. He also used bream or bluegills when he was after flatheads. As you can probably tell he wasn't into things like we buy now for catfish bait. As a matter of fact I think I heard his spirit laughing at me the other day every time I cussed that fancy dip bait I had paid $4 for and saying I thought I taught you better then that. Goodluck with the catfish Sparky, and always remember the best bait is what they see coming down the river everyday.

Oldtrap

[Sparky93]

Thanks Oldtrap, my dads got a trap that was my great grandpa's. It's a large scale minnow trap for fiddler size catfish. From the stories I've heard he sounds alot like your dad. He'd catch his own night crawlers in his back yard, mom said one time when she was little how she could get the night crawlers to come out of the ground by pouring out soapy water. He didn't like her method as it killed the worms

[finallyME]

The only time I went, I went with a seasoned veteran. He was my buddy in Iraq, and he said I had to come with him when we got home. So, he took me to his parents house in south Texas near Harlingen. His family had lived in the area for a few generations. He gave me all the equipment I needed. For bait, then had a bunch of buckets of stink stuff. They would put all kinds of nasty stuff in it, like liver and bad cheese and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. If you get a waft of it, it takes all the power you have to not hurl. It is pretty runny stuff. Anyways, they gave each of us a bottle with a handle and filled it up with this stuff. Then we got a bunch of treble hooks and some sponge. You put the sponge on the treble and then dip it in the bait jar. Every so often you pull out your line and reapply. My buddy knew the area very well, but not as well as his dad or grandpa. We went to a bunch of spots and got a ton of fish. It was one of the best fishing experiences I have had.

[TheWaywardOne]

When it comes to catfish bait the concoctions and methods are all but infinite. I've seen catfish caught on hotdogs, dove bar soap, sponges sprayed with WD-40, crawlers, liver, mice, baby rattlesnakes, chicken feet..heard of many more. Dough, punch, and dip bait recipes that are jealously guarded as family traditions, and stuff off the shelf. I myself have used such things as velveeta cheese, crawdads, grasshoppers..my hands..goldfish and frogs (personal best channel cat came off a leopard frog). My preferred bait over all else is fresh. Whether it be fresh shad, carp, bluegill, or whatever I can catch or thrownet. Channel cats (and blues on the rare occasion I'm fishing water that has them) get fresh cut bait, with fresh cut carp being my favorite due to it's toughness on the hook and oily nature (usually bowshot in the same waters, as well). My normal routine is bowfish all day then catfish at night unless I'm solely hunting flatheads, then I make sure I have fresh LIVE bait. When I'm after flatheads I'm after big ones. It's an endless debate between catmen when it comes to bait size, but I prefer big bait. I've used goldfish before, and I've even caught quite a few cats on goldfish (and walleye, for that matter), but the rivers I fish are loaded with longnose gar. Bright colored goldfish swimming around draw gar like moth to a flame. I'm not big on commercially prepared baits, and the "stinkier the better" in my experience, is a myth. Not saying you can't catch fish on stink bait, because you can, but more often than not fresh bait is going to produce more. When it comes to noodling, I do that for a month or two out of the year as well, but that may be better saved for another thread.

[Sparky93]

Baby rattle snakes!! that is the craziest thng I have heard in a while! I have not been brave enough to try my hand at noodling (ha ha get it...)

[TheWaywardOne]

Baby rattle snakes!! that is the craziest thng I have heard in a while! I have not been brave enough to try my hand at noodling (ha ha get it...)

Yep, I remember an old river rat who was friends with my grandfather used them. He'd show up with a handful of them in a bucket. Being I was very young I wasn't allowed to go near the bucket alone, but I got to peak inside it a few times. Little prairie rattlers. He caught some good channel cat, and even bass on them. He and my grandpa have both since passed on, but I've heard stories of a few Okies who still use them, though I've never seen it in person again. As for noodling, it can be fun, addictive even. Never, under any circumstance, go alone though. I may start a thread and post some things I've learned about noodling if anyone is interested, maybe discuss a few points of recreation vs. survival.

[Rick]

Baby rattlers for fish bait and noodling fall into the, "Hold my beer and watch this," category for me. If you show up with baby rattlers for fish bait where I'm fishing you will probably go home with a holy bait bucket and I'll go home with an empty magazine. Just sayin'.

[COWBOYSURVIVAL]

Channel Catfish = stinky smelly bait
Blue Catfish = Fresh cut bait or live bait
Flatheads = live bait
Bullheads = Night Crawlers