The catfish is one of the existent fresh water sharks. Of course, it’s not part of the shark family, but it can grow to very large sizes and they will basically eat whatever moves near their dwelling and fits through their enormous throat.
In the southern U.S. these fish are caught using just bare hands, and they call this type of fishing – noodling. I don’t know about you, but I surely wouldn’t venture myself into those deep, murky waters and put my hand into the mouth of one of those 6 feet long monsters.
I prefer fishing them from my boat, using my Hummingbird 958c DI Combo to look for them, then just drop the spoon or a big fat eel near their nose. They always strike immediately, and then the fight begins.
Anyway, in this post I’ll say a thing or two about catfish types of bait. It is known that they prefer decomposed meat, having a very acute sense of smell, they will quickly find anything that has a powerful, rotten stench.
Therefore, you can use chicken guts, animal organs, especially beef liver, as it will emanate a powerful blood smell.
You can also get nice results on fishing catfish by using eels as bait. However it’s best to use them alive, not dead, because they emit certain low frequency sounds and vibrations in the water which makes the catfish go nuts. You can either catch them yourself or buy them from the bait stores, in some places you can buy them by the dozen.
Another type of live bait for catfish is… other, smaller, catfish. Black or yellow bullheads will do.
Last but not least, you can catch catfish using a heavy spoon, dark or yellow colored, in any case, a color to resemble the small fish in the habitat of the catfish you’re hunting for. However, it’s hard to just fish around hoping for a catfish bite on your spoon, so it’s best to look for one before wetting your line. For that, I recommend any of the Hummingbird fish finders with SI or at least DI technology.