Show off your fish

Prolly not on the really big ones. He releases all he catches.

 

I'd love to catch one like the one in your avatar, on a buzz bait no less! Looking to break my PB next year, currently sitting around 3 lbs.

 

We never keep any over 10lbs

 

For big bass, I have had good luck with a Strike King bitsy bug or bitsy flip jig and a Rage Craw trailer. I'm in Wisconsin, and have caught several in the 6-7# range on this.

Black or black/blue jig and Okeechobee Craw trailer in clear water seems best.

Also, late fall is best for big fish up here. But, it might be different in the south as the fish are probably active all winter.

Here's one at 23", 7#. This was the biggest for me. I think it's pretty respectable for Wisconsin. Our state record is only 11#, 3oz.

 

Bitsy bug is my all time favorite.

 

Here are a couple of the larger catfish I've caught running bank poles on the Missouri River:

52 lbs:


73 lbs:


They aren't always big:

 

nice! What you use for bait?

 

I go about it a few different ways.

I use a cast net to catch standard carp/asian carp. If they are under 6", I use them as live bait. You can't transport live asian carp, so they have to be out of the river. If they are bigger, we cut them up into chunks for bait.

Occasionally, if I have time, I'll rod and reel fish for bluegill/sunfish/perch to use for bait.

Lastly, if I'm in a hurry, or not worried about buying bait, I'll get goldfish from the local bait shop. This seems to work the best for flatheads, but gets pretty expensive when you are feeding gars. Depending on where you put them in the current, we might catch 2-3 gar for each catfish.

In the past, since I typically shoot a bunch of deer, I used to cut up the livers and use for bait. It never worked very well, so I've stopped doing it.

 

Cool, ive heard people using chicken legs, thighs but that would get expensive

 

I'm trying to learn how to throw a cast net for bait in Florida. They're illegal in Wisconsin, unfortunately.

I tend to catch bluegills, green sunfish, and small channel catfish for flathead bait. Throw them out live and cut.

Here's my PB. 44" long by 29" girth

I caught my best channel cat on a chicken gizzard.

 

Beautiful family

 

can you use a seine net? Smaller cast nets are easy to learn on. I havent cast a big one yet. I think the one I have is 6'.

 

Seine nets are legal in some places.

My cast net is 6' radius, i think. I was starting to get the hang of it 2 years ago, and then last year I couldn't throw it for shit. I'll have to watch some more videos and start over when I go down to Florida again this winter.

 

Here too, just hard to keep it on a hook.

 

Lol. When you hear that second splash it's time to rebait.

 

some say use pantyhose and wrap the chicken liver with it. seems like it would work. we dont really have much for big catfish here. One small lake has them but we havent really gone after them.

 

At least I know what to do with my old pantyhose now!

 

Raw chicken guts, limburger cheese, unhatched chicks for catfish. Pantyhose works, so does cheesecloth.



This fish bites on plastic stuff with hooks