Catfishing Tips & Secrets List

This is a list of selected Tips and Secrets collected from fishing associates and my own experiences. Some work well anywhere. Others are for special circumstances. All are presented to help you enjoy your catfishing to the fullest.

FISHING TIP:
Catfish Activator (Call them up, make them bite)

For great results when fishing is slow to stopped, day or night, try "clonking". You will be amazed at the activity in a short period of time. This little trick is for "turning on" those inactive, refuse to bite, catfish. When fish are biting, all you need is the right bait and sometimes any bait. But there are times that fish are just inactive. They refuse to bite, no matter what you do. At those times, try this catfishing tip. Clonking will activate the inactive catfish and initiate the biting.

You will need a clonker. A clonker is a round, flat disk with a vertical or near vertical handle coming out of the center of the disk. Disk diameter is 3 to 4 inches. Thickness of the disk is normally 1/8 to 1/4 inch. The handle should be 18 to 24 inches long and less than 1 inch thick. Cross sectional shape of the handle is optional. Optimum design measurements will depend on personal preference and individual stroke patterns. The clonker can be purchased, or home made. If you choose to purchase, they run from
$16.95 plus shipping at catfishconection.com to
$29.95 plus shipping at catfishcaller.com .

If you choose to make one, look at the commercial ones at the above sites for guidance.

To clonk, hold the clonker so that you can stab the flat disk into the water. Stab the clonker into the water with a rapid motion until the disk is 6 to 10 inches deep. Pull the clonker back in a paddling motion, for a couple of foot. Pivot the wrist to pull the clonker out of the water, creating a splash. Make this movement all in one continuous, smooth motion. Practice before going out, until you get a distinctive ker-plunk sound on the stabbing motion and a backward splash as the disk exits the water.

Repeat the process for a total of 3 to 5 times over a period of one minute (15 to 20 seconds apart). Stop and wait for the fish to bite. You should see increased activity in less than 30 minutes and sometimes in 5 minutes or less.

FISHING TIP:
Drop Sinker(For fishing in swift currents)

Some of the best catfishing, especially for the trophy fish, is in very swift currents. In order to get the bait down and keep it down in these currents,it takes a relatively heavy weight. When you set the hook on a nice 10 to 15 pounder and start the fight to land it, you are also fighting the heavy weight of your sinker. And if you hang a 3 to 5 pounder, you are not sure if you have a fish or if the current is playing with your sinker and bait.

You may want to try the Sinker-Dropper. It was created by Orindo Matteoli, of northern California. The Sinker Dropper is a small, lightweight unit, designed to drop the heavy sinker following a strike. Mr. Matteoli suggest making your own sinkers out of just about anything heavy, such as scrap pipe, scrap rebar or scrap steel plate. You could use rocks in home made cloth bags. Just use your imagination. The Sinker-Dropper is designed to have an adjustable tension for dropping the sinker. You can find out more about the unit or purchase one at Sinker-Dropper.com .

Of course your can consider building your own design. I have tried, with limited success, using avery light line to connect the sinker to the rigging. When a catfish is hooked and the play of the fish starts, the sudden jerks on the line soon causes the heavy weight to break the light line. I was only successful with very heavy sinkers, while fishing for larger fish. The keys to any system to drop the sinker are:
1. The dropping system must maintain full line strength.
2. The system must automatically release the sinker with the pull of the fish.
3. The system should not cause excesive drag when playing the catfish. 4. The sinkers must be very inexpensive.
5. The sinkers must vary in weight for use in varying current strengths.

Whatever your aproach, the practice of dropping the sinker, makes catfishing in strong current, much more fun. I also believe it increases the number of catfish landed.

Send me an email with your ideas and experiences at Just Catfishing .

FISHING TIP:
Change Up Bait

When I catfish, I like to go and camp out for 3 or 4 days. I always carry plenty of snack food, as I hate to do a lot of cooking, which takes up fishing time. On this particular trip, we could not find bait. Our seine and cast net always came up empty. Due to a power outage, the bait shop where we camped, had no live bait or frozen bait. We tried catching perch, but even that did not work well. By the end of the first day, we had used up all the bait we had brought with us. Our night catfishing was cut short when we ran completely out of bait.

Back at camp, I started looking through our food supply for bait. I took a couple of packages of wieners (or hot dogs if you prefer) and cut them up in bait size chunks and put them in a couple of sandwich bags. I then opened up a couple of cans of sardines and poured the oil into the sandwich bags and sealed them up. We then ate the sardines as a night time meal before going to bed.

The next morning, we started early, using the wieners for bait. We caught our limit of channels by mid morning, just before the wieners ran out. Since that time I have used wieners soaked in sardine oil on many catfishing trips, sometimes with great success, sometimes with no luck at all. So I use it as a change up bait. Try it sometimes, when nothing else is working. Or better yet, try it side by side with your favorite bait and see the results.

FEEDBACK: We would love to have feedback from those of you who try (or have already tried) these catfishing tips. Send an email to Just Catfishing .

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