Live bait for catfish.

I don't believe that I have ever used live bait for bass, at all. When I first starting fishing for bass at the age of 11, I was using artificials lures. However, there have been times when I was catfishing, that I did catch bass on "live" bait. I consider live bait anything that comes from a living animal. On the occasions where I have caught bass while catfishing, I was using the tail from a bluegill.

I use mostly live bait for catfish and gills. Sometimes I will use it for crappies, but I have seen days where jigs outfished live bait.

When I camp on an island I rely on what I can catch. I'll set out a few jugs and float some goldfish, catching catfish, bass, and occasionally having to chase a jug a mile behind a striper. I started off doing that in 1959 here, the object to freeze up a minimum of 50 pounds of bass and or crappie fillets a week in spring and fall. We culled 3 pound bass, not worth messing with. While the jugs loaded up we cast Creme worms, loading the boat. Well, that was when the lake was young, in its prime. Too soon the native vegetation died out and the lake remained virtually barren except for laydowns and brush piles dumped around by the hundreds every year, until hydrilla invaded in to revive bassing in the 90s. It's just the two of us now, so all I need is 3-5 bass a week for our own use, except for a church project involving 20 fishing members combining fillets for a 400# fish fry this spring. That's a lot of work.

Jim

I use live bait for perch and walleye because on some days, you just need it IMO. Also for fish like catfish I will use bait, not live though, usually chunks of sucker meat. And carp of course will only eat bait. Very difficult to get them to eat a lure.

Also through the ice I use live bait.

Nothing wrong with using live bait for any species however, I just find it more fun to cast lures whenever possible.

I use live bait for bream... and normally I use cutbait for catfishing but I am planning on doing some catfishing on Santee in a couple weeks and this time, besides cut bait, I am also going to be bringing some small bream from my pond... a couple dozen of them between 2" and 5" long... for catfish bait. I've never used live bream but I hear it's the hottest catfish bait going on Santee. I'll let yall know how it goes.

Jared, there was this fellow who raised catfish, and he swore up and down that a channel cat would not hit a live bluegill. We proved him wrong, cause we took him fishing the old farm pond we used to fish out of, which he stocked with his channel cats.

Dad and thrown out a bobber rig, with a live gill, and a 20 lbs. catfish came up outta the water, and did a JAWS kinda thing, and when down on the bluegill.

So, yup, bluegills are great for live bait, and they are quite hardy.

Oh yeah. I know they are good live bait... Ive just never used them. The 109lb pounder caught from Santee that held the world record for many years was caught on a live bream. And from what I am told most of the monsters caught out of thier are also caught on live bream.

Ive always used cut bait... cut herring, cut shad or cut mullet... whatever I could get. I have tried live shad but I didnt see a big difference.

The main reason I am going to use the live bream is that my pond is so over populated with bream taht measure between 2 - 5" its terrible. This is one way to cut that population down

Yea, we fish a lot out of the Coosa River, and when Dad and I would use a cast net to get live shad, we never caught much of anything on them. Cut them, and we would catch fish.

Now, when we would go to the areas for stripers, that's a different story. We could downline a live shad, and have it ate in no time.

Then, there was that time that a 2 lbs. crappie hit a live warmouth that I had downlined for a striper. LOL Everyone laughed about that one, but that crappie sure did taste good.

Got my biggest last year on a bluegill with the head and spines cut off.

lol sweet Rich!

Howd ya cut the spines off? Just scissored them off down the back?

We do that when we are fishing for flatheads.................cut the tail down to where the bream can't motor around the area.

I like to use live suckers and chubs for Cats,if they die i will cut them up
in peices,and when going Catfishing i never leave home without Mother Natures
Best,NIGHT CRAWLERS,I put a wad of at least 8 on the hook,In a Tournament
on a nasty weather night on Patoka Lake Indiana,they got me 1st place and
Big Cat Pot Total money that night right at $1200.00,I do belive if you dont
have them with you dont have enough bait,I keep 500 in the wifes crisper
drawer at 38 degrees,kinda keeps them slowed down so they cant get in
butter. :thumbup01: Capt.Kirk :tbh_flag:

Favorite live bait for smaller catfish (i.e. eating-sized channel cats, bullheads and small blues) is nightcrawlers. Favorite live bait for bigger cats (flatheads, large blues) is bluegills (in Illinois, you can use panfish as bait if you catch them in the same water where you'll be fishing them... you can't bring them from other lakes, but you can use them if you get them on-the-spot).
:jitterbug:

I have caught catfish with live nightcrawlers, live shad and occasionally live minnows. I prefer dead shad, dead shrimp or chicken livers (those dead too, lol

San

Sonny said:

Favorite live bait for smaller catfish (i.e. eating-sized channel cats, bullheads and small blues) is nightcrawlers. Favorite live bait for bigger cats (flatheads, large blues) is bluegills (in Illinois, you can use panfish as bait if you catch them in the same water where you'll be fishing them... you can't bring them from other lakes, but you can use them if you get them on-the-spot).
:jitterbug:

Click to expand...

yelp sonny mine too. flatheads love them bluegills the bigger the better for the BIG Ones :cheers:

Fine ideas guys! :victory:

Up until not too long ago, all i ever used was live bait, specifically night crawlers. and I caught cats, bass, gills, all kinds of fish off of just regular nightcrawler. However the big problem is that most the bluegills just take the bait from ya. I find it alot more fun to use artificial lures now.

I dont use live bait at all except when catfishing, I have tried all of the store bought stuff (powerbait, etc.) for catfish and none of it produced. What I do is I catch a smaller bluegill and I fillet it with a fillet knife and I get all of the meat out of it, I use the meat for bait and it works very well. I fish for channel cats and bullheads up here, so I only use the meat. But when I fished for larger channels and flatheads, we used live gills or very large chunks.

I use gills,perch and harring.gills and sm perch work very well for channels,blues,white channels.Harring cut up works great for big muds and yellow bellies.

I use bream on jugs to get big cats. Usually cut but, small bream hooked on a 5/0 circle hook gets results MPB is 43Lbs and I lost count on the 15 to 35 pounders. WHen fishing for eaters I use worms or chicken livers only problem with the liver is turtles.