>>814295I prefer to use fresh bait when targeting catfish, preferrably from the water I'm fishing. I use differnt bait for the Big three Catfish(blues,flathead,channel) My state allows using bluegills so I put them on live with a 8/0 Octapus Circle(tied on a 40lb Fluoro leader) for Flathead on a fish finder rig with a 3oz. I fish out of a Raft and my friend and I take two cars, parking one downstream (our take out area) and launch up stream (put-in area). We catch bluegills as we drift down stream on 1/32oz jigs tipped with worm or white 1in plastic grubs and stow them in Flowtroll livewells, keeping them lively. Then we use them in deep holes near structure.
For blues I use a 8ft castnet and catch shad. I have better luck catching bait at lowlight conditions. I keep these in a cooler with a frozen jug of water( i fill up a gal. milk container with water and freeze it) which keeps the bait cool and dry. Your shad will stay fresher this way. I can keep bait fresh like this for 3days. I also use eel bought from asian markets.
For channels I use cut bluegill, fresh. Or fresh cut sucker. People like dough baits for channel. I've caught alot of small ones on it but prefer cutbait for big channels. If you cant use bluegill or catch suckers , fresh cut mackeral bought at a seafood market will work ok.
