Try the pre-baiting suggestions. Various types of chums can work. Get the cats feeding then fish the area with items used as bait. Try smaller hooks, even circle hooks and minimal weight. Note - Cats when hooked do release a fright hormone or some chemical that often discourages other cats from biting so often you cannot catch a lot of them at one time. Try pre-baiting and fishing several different areas. If the cats aggressively feed on the pellets try some Stubby Steve baits.
http://stubbysteve.com/ Bill I had an interesting observation in line with what you are talking about. For a couple months this summer I would catch or trap small GSF out of my forage pond, take them over to my main pond, cut the tail off clear into the meat so the fish would be mortally damaged, then feed them off the dock to waiting fish. LMB was my primary target but the CC soon learned the game and the LMB would only get two or three out of maybe 20 and the CC would get the rest. Had a lot of large and medium CC coming to the dock every time I set foot on it.
Fast forward and we were wanting to remove some of the largest CC. Wife throws half a GSF over the edge of the dock on a circle hook and BAM!, not quite 6# CC. For the next ten days could hardly get a CC near that area. Couple of weeks later we caught some more in the area but they sure caught on quick that the free meals had strings attached.
