06-01-2005, 11:37 AM
Idaho ? You continually surprise me. We'll have to talk about Idaho when we get to gether next time. Anyway, back to the topic.
Cat fishin - in the Ozarks. (This is where you'all find out that I'm just another hick from the sticks) Slow moving muddy small rivers, back water ponds and lakes, or the Missouri and/or Mississippi Rivers. In my experience, cat fishin is cat fishin. Cat fish don't bite, taste, fight, look, act or smell any different down where I grew up than they do here. However, the fishing traditions are somewhat different - mostly due to the "environment", I think.
I used crawlers, crawdads, chicken parts(parts is parts)that really stank, blood, bacon grease and leftover cornbread/biscuit dough, lima beans(I have no idea why, but, dang, they sure do work good), live fish(minnows or panfish), Yams and sweet taters, cut up fish(cut bait), and that really gross stuff that I had to clean out of the bottom of the chicken feeders and pig slop troughs once every couple of days. Generally, we left stuff fester out in the sun for a spell before using it so it would gather up some good "momentum". That was needed because of where the cat fish typically hung out. You could find them only under the major debris piles in the eddies and backwaters. Because of the currents and hydrolics of the waters, and the certainty of loosing your hardware if your presentation ended up in(or taken in by a fighting cat) the debris tangles, we had to advertise our offerings from a spot just outside of their lair, so, the smelly calling card used for bait had to get their attention from a distance. The really big fish usually were hunkered down during the day and only cruised at night - I was a kid so I couldn't stay out late too often for the best fishing. At that time, or maybe I just didn't know anything(I was a kid and didn't need to know), we traditionally chummed for the cats prior to fishing the hole - in order to "prime" the spot and get the fish in the mood to feast or to start them looking around for the "food" they were smelling - we would use chicken blood(that was saved for this purpose when we killed the chickens on our farm) or that gross and sometimes gooey stuff from the animal feeding troughs - these things were left in the sun for a day or so(downwind of the house) then the concoction was plopped just up current from the intended fishing hole 10 to 15 minutes before putting in the baited hooks. Interestingly, One thing I have noticed out here - you'all sure do use BIG hooks where they ain't really needed - must be because you'all had money when you was a kid and could afford to throw away all that metal or, you're just better fishermen than me and never lost any of those expensive looking BIG hooks to snags, monster fish, or bad knots. When I first came out here, and peered into one of my new local friend's tackle box and saw all them "1,2,3,4,5,6/0" hooks in there, I was amazed ! and, thinking we were embarking on a safari for the "loch ness monster" or a man eating shark ! My friend was equally amazed that I did not have anything even close yet I was doing just fine, and actually, catching more fish and having less problems getting them off my line so I could fish some more. He don't use them monster meat hooks any more.
Sorry this turned out so long - in the next epic like chapter, I'll cover the facinating world and incredible array of applications in fishing with "Floats"(No, not those red and white thingies called "Bobbers" around these parts).
[signature]
Cat fishin - in the Ozarks. (This is where you'all find out that I'm just another hick from the sticks) Slow moving muddy small rivers, back water ponds and lakes, or the Missouri and/or Mississippi Rivers. In my experience, cat fishin is cat fishin. Cat fish don't bite, taste, fight, look, act or smell any different down where I grew up than they do here. However, the fishing traditions are somewhat different - mostly due to the "environment", I think.
I used crawlers, crawdads, chicken parts(parts is parts)that really stank, blood, bacon grease and leftover cornbread/biscuit dough, lima beans(I have no idea why, but, dang, they sure do work good), live fish(minnows or panfish), Yams and sweet taters, cut up fish(cut bait), and that really gross stuff that I had to clean out of the bottom of the chicken feeders and pig slop troughs once every couple of days. Generally, we left stuff fester out in the sun for a spell before using it so it would gather up some good "momentum". That was needed because of where the cat fish typically hung out. You could find them only under the major debris piles in the eddies and backwaters. Because of the currents and hydrolics of the waters, and the certainty of loosing your hardware if your presentation ended up in(or taken in by a fighting cat) the debris tangles, we had to advertise our offerings from a spot just outside of their lair, so, the smelly calling card used for bait had to get their attention from a distance. The really big fish usually were hunkered down during the day and only cruised at night - I was a kid so I couldn't stay out late too often for the best fishing. At that time, or maybe I just didn't know anything(I was a kid and didn't need to know), we traditionally chummed for the cats prior to fishing the hole - in order to "prime" the spot and get the fish in the mood to feast or to start them looking around for the "food" they were smelling - we would use chicken blood(that was saved for this purpose when we killed the chickens on our farm) or that gross and sometimes gooey stuff from the animal feeding troughs - these things were left in the sun for a day or so(downwind of the house) then the concoction was plopped just up current from the intended fishing hole 10 to 15 minutes before putting in the baited hooks. Interestingly, One thing I have noticed out here - you'all sure do use BIG hooks where they ain't really needed - must be because you'all had money when you was a kid and could afford to throw away all that metal or, you're just better fishermen than me and never lost any of those expensive looking BIG hooks to snags, monster fish, or bad knots. When I first came out here, and peered into one of my new local friend's tackle box and saw all them "1,2,3,4,5,6/0" hooks in there, I was amazed ! and, thinking we were embarking on a safari for the "loch ness monster" or a man eating shark ! My friend was equally amazed that I did not have anything even close yet I was doing just fine, and actually, catching more fish and having less problems getting them off my line so I could fish some more. He don't use them monster meat hooks any more.
Sorry this turned out so long - in the next epic like chapter, I'll cover the facinating world and incredible array of applications in fishing with "Floats"(No, not those red and white thingies called "Bobbers" around these parts).
[signature]