fishing with cocktail shrimp and calamari this weekend

[Dreamsofpeace54]

multispecies tamer, how often do you fish for cats?

if u want big cats then by all means use cut or live bait, but if u want a cooler full of nice eaten sized catfish than shrimp is the way to go. ive caught hundreds of 3-8lb channel catfish on shrimp over the years and my recent 11lber came on it too, believe me they bite it.

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

multispecies tamer, how often do you fish for cats?

if u want big cats then by all means use cut or live bait, but if u want a cooler full of nice eaten sized catfish than shrimp is the way to go. ive caught hundreds of 3-8lb channel catfish on shrimp over the years and my recent 11lber came on it too, believe me they bite it.

I fish for cats at least once a week. Like I said shrimp will take some fish. But as we all know catfish are sent feeders and nothing beats that natural sent of fresh bait from the river. Blues and flats are heavy fish eaters thats why shrimp is the wrong choice for them. But the best bait for channels is that small cut bait. Fresh from the river guts hanging add a circle hook and sinker and your ready to go. For flatheads I myself use bluegills or large creek chubs. With fresh bait from the same river equaling more bits. This year I caught a 18 and 19 pound flathead on back to back casts. Caught them using my 9'8" gloomis steelhead rod. Its a Medium light rod with a fast action tip. I was using a 1 oz walking sinker and about a 1 foot leader to a small circle hook baited with fresh cut bluegill. The reason for the long rod was acurate cast up into an eddy near the dam with my normal ugly stick catfish rods I dont have that acurate cast and cant feel the light sinker on the bottom. That same day I caught 5 channels, 3 of them being 5 pounds the other 2 were smaller one 18 inchs and the other about 13 inchs.