Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Catfish will not bite Bait on a Hook, any suggestions?

Welcome to the forum, Sam.

In addition to the baits you have mentioned, I have also caught my CC on chunks of deer liver and heart. I think any kind of liver, the bloodier the better, would work as well.

You can try surprising some while they are pellet feeding. Berkeley Powerbait has a pelleted bait just a little larger and about they same size as a fish food pellet. Try tossing one of these on a hook, set very shallow, in the middle of a pellet-feeding group of CC. I have been fairly successful at getting some CC on the hook this way - it's the non-fly fishing equivalent of George's pom-pom fly.

CC are reported to be rather shy/cautious, and my experiences back this up. It is fairly easy for me to catch one or two CC in an hour or two at my pond, but much rarer to get more than that in one trip. Catching one CC seems to make the rest withdrawn for a few hours. So lots of shorter fishing periods may yield more CC from your pond than a few long fishing periods lasting the same total amount of time/casts.

If legal for you, try jugging as well. I am not an expert on this, but harvested several cats this way in 2004. I used plastic gallon milk and cooking oil jugs, heavy monofilament line, some hefty lead weights, and fairly large (about size 0 ?) hooks. I would bait and toss them in when I left the pond at night when it was not supposed to be too windy. Tough baits that stay on the hook a long time work best - I had the best results with liver and post-fillet catfish tails. The fun part of jugging was chasing a jug with a catfish on it around the pond in a canoe.