i live in south minneapolis and often fish the mississippi river just below the dam with nightcrawlers.i have caught catfish but none exceding 3 to 4 lbs. anybody know if there are big catfish there? if so any tips on how to catch them? any help would be apreciated. 
when i lived in the cities i caught quite a few channel cats up to 18 lbs. on cutbait. crawlers will work but the cutbait always produced bigger and more numbers for me. don’t ignore the mouths of the creeks and tributaries that dump in below and above the ford dam. lots of fish in the 5-10lb. range all through the cities. hope that helps.
Cutchub and shiners should work just fine. Steve Demars even uses cut bullhead with great success on the St. Croix.
There’s 3 easy ways to do cut bait in MN:
1) Pick up dead suckers from your local bait shop, who is most often happy to get rid of them.
2) Catch a few small bullheads in a local pond and use them for cut bait.
3) Swing into your local grocery store and buy some smelt from the meat section.
Any of these work, the first two options being low-cost-to-free.
PS – To which dam do you refer, as there are many in the area?
sorry should have mentioned that 
. I fish right under the ford dam where minnehaha creek runs into the mississippi river.
Then toss a 6.9 inch bullhead out there and hang on! Frozen fish never stays on my hook that well anyway, might even catch a scaled fish in that area. 
thanks. i live right by a lake filled with bullheads and they are easy to catch so ill be trying them as bait sometime soon.
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thanks. i live right by a lake filled with bullheads and they are easy to catch so ill be trying them as bait sometime soon.
Just make sure they’re 7″ or under. The DNR will check, depending on the circumstances, and they will cite you for using bullheads over 7″. One of BK’s friends even got a warning for having a 7.5″ bully in his bait tank.
Suckers have to be 12″ or shorter, too.
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