We catch wild shiners in the spring and freeze a dozen per bag. Cut shiners work great for channels and the occasional bottom feeder (walleye.)

Tom B

Lindners, In Fish and Dave Genz have been on the Horseshoe chain this winter filming catfish segments for future TV shows. We know where they are going, can see the fish on the depthfinder, but have not been able to get any to bite. Spoke to Genz, he says that they caught plenty of fish, but when we asked specifically what they were doing, he didn’t seem to take us seriously.

Tom B

Using walleye parts for bait????

Several years back, we were fishing a rock point on Lake Traverse for carp. Caught the occasional walleye, then we stumbled on cats! Huge ones. We had one big channel cat up to the boat when it rolled and puked up half dozen 6-10 inch walleyes. We figured that the cats were in the gaps between the boulders and sucking up the walleyes as they swam over them to spawn.

It was the best use of walleyes that I have ever seen!

Tom B

Yep, just scattered 5 gallons of the stuff in about an area as big as my boat. Used the electric motor to position ourselves a little ways away and we fished in, around and next to the chummed area.

It was pretty funny, the first 1/2 dozen fish we caught were puking beans all over the place while we were unhooking them. It was pretty obvious that they liked them.

But, why did we scatter them??? That’s what the article in the Catfish In-Sider said to do. They were writing about baiting in Nebraska with Milo and they spread it out, usually 5-10 gallons at a time. My bro in law is a dirt farmer, so I bought a sack of beans from him, and away we went.

Interestingly, soybeans really swell up while they are fermenting. 1 full ice cream bucket is about all we needed to end up with 5 gallons of fermented beans. The first batch I made, I put a bit more than 2 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket and by day 2, I had to put a bunch of them into another bucket.

We have also tried corn. We cook field corn for carp fishing and have had a couple batches ferment. We tried using it, but sure didn’t have much success.

Actually, we have almost no success with any of the fermented or stick baits. We have caught our biggest fish on either liver, spam or cut shiners. Kinda bums me out, it’s not always easy to find shiners (we catch them in a nearby creek.)

We fish the Miss near Sauk Rapids and the Horseshoe Chain.

Tom B

We tried chumming several times last year with fermented soybeans. Attracted lots of very small cats, 1 lb and smaller and when we reeled them in, they were almost exploding with soybeans (they all were puking them out at the boat.) It seems that we do so much better with either cut bait or chicken liver, that it’s not worth the effort or the smell.

I did buy a 1 bushel bag of beans, and we haven’t hardly used any, so I am sure we will try it in a few more spots this coming year, but so far…

Tom B