Night of the Living Catfish

[Mrs. Hillbilly]

Chris you and Steve just needs someone to cook & clean the fish.  If I come down I would like to do the bow fishing with the gar, and stand back. 

Tina

[Mechslasher]

when i get back from jamaica, come on down.  the carp and gar should be really rolling in the shallows about then!  work on steve for the weekend of 4/17.

[PeteC]

Nice bunch fellas.They're bitin' over here too. God bless

[JW_Halverson]

Aw man, when I think back on the thousands of pounds of channel cats that I threw back into the Missouri River up in North Dakota when I was chasing them ugly-butt walleyes I can only greive, grevious grieving!

Nowadays I am better edjumakated, and we hit the Belle Fourche ( bell foosh ) river every chance we get in the summer for beautiful silvery-blue channel cats that generally run 4-8 lbs.  We found the best bait is a frog, the second best bait is uncooked 50-60 count shrimp.  On a good night we can turn a pound of $6 shrimp into about 75 lbs of whiskerfish.  

Of course, in the natural progression of things, we have to sip a barley soda and stoke up a nice Dominical long filler stogie in order to get the fish to bite.  Well, maybe they bite without beer and cigars, but we ain't the ones to risk getting skunked.  

[Mechslasher]

will have to try the shrimp next time.  always on the look out for the next great bait.  got to be easier than using 2" shinners that have been cut in half.

[recurve shooter]

nice.  all i catch is turtles. 

[mullet]

 I used to always use the shrimp. Then I switched to squid that had sat in the sun for a day. Squid is like using tough, stinky rubber.

[Hillbilly]

Chris, If I've got shrimp, I don't need catfish-I'll eat the shrimp.

[stickbender]

     Catfish, and hush puppies, and grits!  Ahhh man, now I hungry for fried Catfish!  Thanks, just what I need at 1:09 am!
I gotta stop reading these post this late!

                                                                                     Wayne

[mullet]

 Steve, I used to go by the Fish Market and buy a half dozen Mullet when we went camping on the river. We'd get there late in the afternoon and bait two 25 hook trot lines with cut up Mullet. Then we'd cook the remaning 4 for dinner. And harvest catfish the rest of the weekend. We'd also get crawdad's, gig frogs and hunt hogs the rest of the weekend.

[stickbender]

     We used to use liver, in patches of nylon stocking material, and old shrimp, in the same material, some people have used soap, I think it was Ivory, I never have, but I have heard of it.  Hey, Tiller, there is a new line for your soap, "bottom blossom" the catfish cocaine.   
Just about anything stinky will get their attention.  Mashed up earthworms, in the nylon stocking material, etc.  Frog guts, and so forth.  Heck you could save your fish guts, and freeze them, and then use them for bait, wrapped up in the nylon stocking material. Stockings, panty hose, whatever holds the bait, without it coming off the hook.  Plus it is reusable.  If it gets torn a bit, just re wrap it.
                                                                               Wayne

[recurve shooter]

mr. eddie, i eat mullet to. not to bad. with expeditions like that a cast net is my best friend. you can almost always catch something edible.

stickbender, i like the stocking idea. may try that. i love chicken liver for catfish bait, but always had trouble keeping it on the hook. 

[knightd]

Smoked Mullet dip..Is the way to go.. Eddie you know what im getting at..

[servicebeary]

my buddy found the best cat bait I've ever seen before.  I've tried a lot of stink baits over the years, but this one that smells truly horrible actually works.  They come in to within 10 ft of the shore in a foot of water to get the stuff!  You could net them if you were fast enough.  He caught a 17 pounder 15 ft from shore with that bait once, and that's a big cat for Idaho.  I wonder how that stuff would work in the south east?  I fished lake Gaston in N.C. a long time ago and I couldn't tell any difference in what they bite on. 
---there's a ton of mercury in the fish here due to all the past gold mining, but the fishing association book I have claimed that all you have to due is remove all the belly fat and you get rid of almost all of the heavy metals, I think it works, unless I'm crazy and just don't know it
--oh, and I'll second the notion of them being really good predators, we catch em on croppie jigs, and spinners all the time

[stickbender]

     Dana, if you do catch yerself a catfish, easiest way to clean them is to just take a sharp knife, and go around the head and neck , and make a full circumference cut, then take a nail, and nail  the head, of the fish to a board, plywood, plank, whatever, and take a pair of pliers, and grab the skin behind the head, and pull it off!  then just cut the head off, and pull the guts out, and clean out the fat, and air bladder, and other tissue that don't taste good.  Then if you want, you know you being a Yooper and all, ya can fillet them, or do it southern style if they are not too big, and just pat them dry, and dip them in an egg mix, and then dredge them in some corn meal, crushed corn flakes, or whatever you want, with some Cajun seasoning, and a little granulated garlic, and onion powder, and fry away!  We used to catch a bunch of little ones about 8-10 " long, and fry them up in butter, when I was a little kid. We used to call them yellow bellies.  They were usually not any bigger than that.  But oh boy, oh boy were they ever good!   

                                                                                 Wayne