First, I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments.

Several I've already acted upon. Several others, I've already tried. A couple others ... well, more on that below.

Based on Maki's suggestions, I stopped on the way home from work last night and bought the very largest bait hooks I could find. I also bought 10 pounds of chicken quarters.

Last night, just before dark, I threw out a big jug with half a chicken quarter. I embedded two large bait hooks in the meat.

I had a surprise before I went to work this morning. The jug was in the lower brances of a willow that overhangs the big holes the catfish have excavated. The line led to the mouth of one of the big holes. Ah ha! I knew I had a big one when I started pulling on the line. I wasn't quite prepared for the hissing and really bad mood of a snapper about 18-inches long. He's currently taking a mineral bath in a salt/sugar brine and will be the main guest at dinner on Friday night.

That brings me to my next subject. Maki suggested noodling. If this guy was living in one of these holes, I'm sure glad I didn't stick any of my appendages in there.

For another of Maki's suggestions, I'm having a fishing party Friday night. I've invited some of my old buddies who I've fished with on the Potomac, Shenandoah, Rappahannock, and James Rivers here in WV and VA. They all have their secrets for landing big cats. We'll see.

The last big cat I got out of the pond came using one of Theo Gallus' suggestions. I threw a piece of liver in the middle of a feeding frenzy. That produced a 28-incher in about a second -- about 2 months ago. That was the last cat I caught this season. They scatter as soon as they see my line.

I chuckeled when I read Theo Gallus' suggestion of using bare catfish tails as bait. It reminded me of how my dad suggested I catch birds. He told me to put salt on their tail feathers. When they were licking it off, he told me that was the time to grab them. I guess if I could catch a catfish, I could use its tail for bait.

I don't know that I've read every post on the PondBoss website, but I sure have read a lot of them. I did an additional search today to see if I missed something. It again re-inforced what a wonderful site this is, and it has given me a lot more ideas of how to get outsmarted.

Thanks again to everyone.

Here's wishin'good fishing to everyone,

Ken

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