bait and ?

Do you use suckers? I have a hard time keeping them alive sometimes. any tips with that.I use them dead too. People talk about useing bull heads,I have seen how you hook them. Has any one ever used them dead? I would imagine that they are more hardy. For me, they are hard find and I dont know of a bait shop that sells them and i don’t have time to fish for them. How do you make you bait selection for the night. do you just throw about one of each and then decide what to use depending on which one gets hit the fastest. You also say if you don’t get a bit in ten minutes move. Don’t those cats move around alot so if I stay in one spot for the night would i have a chance, maybe i am afraid of moving and then missing the bit. I find that certain times too have better bits for some reason. like right at dusk,and then like 10pm,midnight and 2am. I know they can bit at anytime but for the most part it seems that they hit more or i get runs right about those times. I have just recently started catfishing and it is a blast. I can’t wait to hear the real clicker go buzzing.

Ben

i use stink baits. to help keep the suckers alive longer you need to keep the water cool, with ice packs or cubes, but not so cold it shocks them and oxygenated well.

Are you targeting channels or flats?

You know i just get in a spot and sit. and whatever bits, bits. Sometimes its a flat or sometimes its a channel. I don’t know how to just target one or the other exclusively. One night in a spot could be a flat and the next night same spot it could be a channel and i was useing the same thing both nights. So i just keep on doing the same thing and they keep bitting

Bullheads are more hardy, alot cheaper and kinda fun to catch. The last time i picked up some big suckers i think it was $1.50 each.
Just to have 3 died within 15mins. But once dead they do work good as cutbait.

What alot of us catters do, is go bait fishing days prior to going out catting. I run a pretty simple bait holder setup. I used a cheap aquarium areator and a 50gal cooler on wheels. To keep the water cool, I freeze plastic water bottles, then put a couple in the cooler daily. During transport, I unplug the air hose from the Aquarium areator and into a bubble box.
Check your local kid ponds, they’re usually fill with bullheads.
Good luck and hope this helps

Benny – I see you live in Forest Lake, but you must be willing to travel from there to get near Flatheads (St. Croix?) so here’s a tip for getting bullheads. Bob Moore at Moore’s Bait carries bullheads at his shop. It is in South Minneapolis, but they will survive the ride back to Forest Lake

Benny,There are many lakes in your area that are full of bullheads for the taking.Try the centerville area, I think you will be pleasantly suprised.As for keeping them alive I use a garbage can or large cooler with a frozen milk jug for transport.Once I am on the water I keep them in an old school 4 dollar panfish basket.Very easy to get to, and when moving from spot to spot the whole basket fits in the live well.This works great for suckers and chubs as well.

Well thanks for all the tips, last night i went out and picked up a bait cooler. I am gonna pick up a bubble box of some sort. Do bullheads and suckers mix, because i know fatheads and crappy minnows don’t do so well with each other. (learned that one the hard way).

What is your favorite set up for these bullheads.(a net) split shot and a hook with a worm on it. or corn. If you catch a 12Incher save to cut up i assume. Seems weird to use bullheads haha. but if thats what works hey I’m in.

I have been useing my line counter reels because that what i have. If i get a bait caster they don’t have a clicker built in, so just use a bell or does someone have a better setup. If don’t watch the rod or hold it how do you know when the fish bits . So just use a bell or a light? tie something to the line like a some rock or ???

Lots of guys here use Abu Garcia reels 6500 and 7000s (if you wear a skirt). they have clickers built in. Nothing wrong with using the line counters as my Sealines are often drafted for double duty. Other guys like to use spinning rigs to each their own. Both are good setups.

Bells seem to work just fine if you don’t have a bait clicker. You can even get fancy and find bells that have a little glow rod attached! I use a Abu 6500C3 and a Berkeley Glowstick rod, which suits me just fine. Heavy duty spinning reels will work just fine as well. You can even pick up a decent combo at Wal-Mart (groan) that would work for channels and even flats in a pinch. Just don’t use the line that comes with it

I personally wouldn’t use bells. Having hardy bait is key, and a hardy bullhead will bounce that rod tip all night. Sometimes they even pull clicker. Those bells would ring all night long.
Alot of times you can see the flat chomp 1st before it takes line out. I’ld run a reel with baitclicker, I usually don’t even pick up my rod till I hear clicker.

As for the rig itself. Most Catters run 65-100PP, to a 3-5oz sinker, heavy duty swivel#100+ test, short leader 5″-9″, then a 10/0 Gama Octa.
Good luck and hope this helps

BELLS! (Groan even louder than the Wallmart groan! )

The only thing bells are good for is identifing brown bear poop!

Seriously…channel catten (or anytime you’re using cut bait) is a good time for bells. I personally don’t own any…as I gave all of mine to FishHead a long time ago.

The only thing I can say about spinning rods is…make sure they fit in your rod holders. I just changed over to the Folbe Advantage holders and they’ll hold Audemps HUGE spinning reel!

Word of caution with bullheads. In MN we can’t legally transport a bh that’s over 7 inches alive. I don’t know anyone that has ever been stopped for this, but I do know someone that was issued a warning citation for it.

We had the cut bullhead for bait converstation a long while ago…don’t recall the out come…but I’ve never had any luck with it. Maybe I just didn’t try enough?

You’ll have to excuse me now…I need to go change skirts.

No bells. They’ll drive you crazy! A light stick taped to the tip of the rod works well. It won’t tell you if line is being pulled out, but neither will a bell. It will however tell you that you might want to check the spool to see if line is being peeled off.

In addition to what frog said, you can put reflective 3m tape for automobiles on your rods in a few places. It really lights up when you shine a light at it. That can be kind of handy if you set your poles up somewhere and want to sit way behind the poles for comfort or whatever. Thill bobber refills are a nice little light to tape to your rod tip too.

Thanks for all the great ideas. i went and pick up a coulpe more reels. I like the idea of a clicker. I put some 80p powerpro on them i will see how that works!

I tried out the bait cooler yeah it works great.
Except the gas station didn’t have batties for the oxygenator.

I went out last night and got all setup with new line and sinkers and hooks. It was great the heavier line does great ripping it threw the snags haha.

I didn’t do so well no catfish But I let my gf set the first hook. The clicker didn’t even go off and i see the pole movin. She grabbed the pole and set the hook (i gave her a speach on setting the hook) and then the battle was on. She said i wanna catch a turtle, oh i hope i is a turtle i have never caught one of those before, and well it was a turtle. Then she proceeded to name it, “harry the turtle”. I ended up cutting the line it was pretty big and almost ripped the pliers out of my hands. Does anybody else have a wife or gf that names their catches hah. well that was pretty much the night.

Thanks again for all of those tips I am gonna try some.

Ben