best catfish bait?

[Guest]

I still haven't decided what I like best........how about you?

[DARK30]

IAturkeyhunter....Welcome to FM!

Good question!....I was just talking with a guy last night about what works best. We decided that it could be any of several differant baits depending on conditions and the body of water being fished.

Channel Cat baits included fresh or rotten cut bait, live minnows, stink bait or dough bait, nightcrawlers, shrimp, liver, frogs, crayfish, and even crankbaits. I go to fresh cut bait first but I'm gonna give shrimp a try soon.

Flatheads? Well, I can only think of one best bait and that is live bait. Theres a few differant options for what type of minnow your using or can get. They would include..Suckers, Bullheads, Creek Chubs, and Sunfish where its legal. I've caught Flatheads on crankbaits but its rare for me in the Minnesota River. My personal favorite are wild Creek Chubs if I can get um.

WET NETS!

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cast,cast,cast,cast......

[vern]

I use fresh cut-bait for channels 95% of the time. I suppose liver would be a good 2nd choice, but I haven't used it for years. I would only use stinkbaits, dipbaits & crawlers if I was out to catch some eating sized fish. Hey Dark, we tried some shrimp on the Red River in the spring. We caught a few fish, but the cut-bait was much more effective. We probably caught half as many cats on shrimp. But give it a try and see what you think. For flatheads I've been using creek chubs caught out of Minnehaha Creek. They are very lively and have worked great for me. My second choice would be suckers. I haven't tried the bullheads yet, but I hear they are the best of all. I'm going to try that soon. Vern

[Guest]

Shrimp, prons, scallops, scuds, or good old everyday crawfish tend to be a better then average mid summer night time baits.

I feel they work best on hard bottom areas were cats are on the prowl for crawfish.Many times in very shallow water, 2' or less is common. A perfect float senerio, big fish, and big fun too!

Fresh cut bait will excell on most waters in the northern range of the channel catfish, and many of the southern waters too. Deep or shallow fresh cut it is always a good bet.

A good rule of thumb is the darker and warmer the water is, the stronger the scent needs to be. Darker slower flowing or stagnet water is a good choice for strong scent presintation.

Thats my $.50 short speech on channel cat baits.

For true flathead wisdom be sure to listen to Toad, Fishhead, and Dark30, they know sumo flatheads.

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Backwater Eddy..><,sUMo,>

Backwater Guiding
"Ed on the RED"
(701)-281-2300

[email protected]

http://home.talkcity.com/ResortRd/backwtr1/index.html

[Guest]

My favorite all time bait for channels is a fresh hunk of creek chub!Second choice would be cut sucker followed by anything else cut.Chicken liver works great and you will catch cats on it but in my experiance they are usually on the small side.
For flatheads you have to go live and the bait has to be kicking! I have been having some good luck with bullheads but I still love a good lively chub.

[vern]

I've been catching a few big 10 pound + channels at night while fishing live chubs for flatheads. On the Minnesota, my biggest channel cats have been caught that way. Vern

[Perch Jerker]

I have been using cut bait for Channel cats and do well. However, I had a wild hair when I was at Cabelas on Monday. I purchased a small tub of blood scented stink bait. I plan on dipping fresh cut bait in it for a sort of 1&2 punch. Someone must have tried this before because I'm not that smart.

As for Flatheads, I don't know. I use 8 - 12" suckers for bait, but I've never caught one .

I park at the 35W & MN River ramp in Bloomington and motor upstream as far as the Hwy 101 bridge. Plenty of channel cats but never a flathead in the past two years.

[CANOPY SAM]

I think I'm fishin' with Ed! If we don't catch any cats we'll have a seafood smorgasboard!!

[Walleye_GFA]

Best ive ever used is crappie and blugill guts... Im new to state, would that violate law ??? Since you cant use game fish for bait ???

[Fisher Dave]

It is illegal to use parts of gamefish in MN (including guts)

I agree that the bluegill body parts are by far the best for cats hands down. I have caught many of channel and flathead cats on fresh sunfish and cut sunfish bait at various locations.

I dont believe there would be anything illegal about soaking some fresh cut sucker chunks in a bag of bluegill entrails although as long as none of the actual fish parts were used as bait.

[catfish1]

I have been doing good on dead creek chubs and cutting them in half. And nightcrawler will get a good sizes channel once in a while. That is my wife favorite sence she got a ten pound channel on crawler.

Catfish156123

[Guest]

Fresh cut or flash frozen Goldeye has been darn good to me this past weekend.

We (C&R) 11 channel cats over #20, another 28 or so over #10, and many more #3-10# cats in the mix. Just gets better and better by the week, gota love it!

Some folks are having a hard time locating the Goldeye right now, but fortunatly I have all I need and plenty more where that came from. It pays to scout for bait ahead of time and keep a supply handy.

Frogs so far are not very easy to find in any numbers in my areas, too much field cover and they will show up as soon as the grain harvest starts. Soon they may be the hottest ticket to punch a big sumo piggys clock.

If anyone has vacation days to burn or can sneak away for a trip it would be a great time this week to hit the Red for sumo cats.

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Backwater Eddy..><,sUMo,>

Backwater Guiding
"Ed on the RED"
(701)-281-2300

[email protected]

http://home.talkcity.com/ResortRd/backwtr1/index.html

[collegeoutdoorsman]

I've only caught goldeye in the creeks in the spring at night...what would up my ratio on catching them?