Fish Thread

[Anonymous No.4858114]

What are your favorite baits and how do you prepare your fish? My favorite baits are homemade, my absolute favorite is sardine doughball catfish bait. Tried and true.

As for prep, nothing beats grilling fish over wood after catching and filleting. Then just squeeze a bit of lemon, salt, pepper and a tiny bit of cayenne.

[Anonymous No.4858125]

'easy cheese' every time for bait and I like my fish smoked whole over hickory or oak wood served over a bed of rice pilaf

[Anonymous No.4858127]

It's been a while since I fished for catfish, when I did I used a mixture of cheap cat food and leftover bread.

These days I go for pan fish. I find that the local insects make irresitible bait. Look around in the grass near the lake or steam, find a big fat grasshopper or a caterpillar or similar. If they're big enough they can act as the casting weight. If they're smaller I put some crimp-on sinkers about a foot from the hook to get enough weight to cast. If you're after bigger fish crawdads work great too.

Agreed about grilling fillets when freshly caught. Also sometimes I grill them whole. Scale, gut, apply salt and grill. If you do it right you get this awesome crispy skin.

[Anonymous No.4858131]

Why so pleb, /ckanglers/?

[Anonymous No.4858136]

Frozen cutbait, cut into nuggets and coated in corn meal, fried. Pic related, 23 inch channel I caught.

[Anonymous No.4858138]

>>4858127
See, I have a tupperware full of crickets and hoppers and another full of nightcrawlers. I keep them ready just in case. How do you catch your grasshoppers? I was 2slo and had someone else do it for me haha.

And I tried going Crawfish hunting with 3-4 milk jugs using the milk jug technique, I caught barely enough to make a nice sandwich. Do i really have to fork over $20+ for a trap?

[Anonymous No.4858139]

>>4858136
Another of my outings. They swallow that frozen sucker meat, it's almost cheating.

[Anonymous No.4858142]

>>4858114
For catfish I use live minnows. They are one of the best baits you can possible use for most catfish species since a lot of them are predators. I never been catfishing with minnows and not caught my limit within a couple hours max. though, I only eat 24" or smaller (better taste, less pollutants) so sometimes I have to toss back the larger ones and wait for smaller ones.

As far as cooking them. I prefer them fried.

The big problem now is that predatory fish are not a big no-no to eat due to mercury, PCBs, and other pollutants. The game and wildlife management says a person my size can only eat one bass or catfish under 24" per month from the waters around here because contamination is so bad now. ;_;

So, I eat a lot of bluegill.

[Anonymous No.4858143]

>>4858125
Are you me, regarding the rice pilaf?

I ALWAYS make some on the spot by making a little wood grill.

[Anonymous No.4858166]

>>4858142
What are good minnow b8s?

[Anonymous No.4858168]

I use this because it's cheaper than spam. I fry a couple of slices to eat before fishing and use the rest as bait.

[Anonymous No.4858171]

>>4858168
i heard if you fry them and pour the juices in tupperware, and let them sit there overnight it works really well

thats with bacon slices though

[Anonymous No.4858176]

>>4858138

I've caught 'em a variety of ways. Easiest is probably using your landing nut--just sweep thru grass and look inside and see what you get. Also if the grass is pretty tall a good trick is to use one foot to sweep the grass sideways. Let your foot bend the grass over, then step down to hold it bent down. The hoppers and crickets can't jump or fly out very easily because they're trapped in the grass. Then just pick through there and see what you find. Live and local is best--when they struggle in the water that attracts fish like mad. Also the fish are used to eating the local insects so they're not as wary as they would be of "foreign" baits. I've never done this personally but I've heard of anglers cutting open a fish's stomach to see what they've been eating and then selecting bait or lures to match what the fish have been eating.

Oh, and worms are great too--especially for trout. When I was a kid I'd go visit my uncle, whose property bordered on a stream that was loaded with trout. I never had a pole but my uncle was a contractor and thus had a lot of tools and handyman type stuff around. I used to catch them using mason's twine for a line, a wine cork for a bobber and I made a hook from a finishing nail and used freshly dug worms for bait. I'd catch a few then give them to my dad to grill. He'd stuff the cavity with lemon and onions and grill 'em. Man those were delicious. Though since my homemade hook didn't have a barb on it I had to let the fish swallow it completely before pulling them in.

[Anonymous No.4858179]

>>4858166

Use a net. Cast net works best, but the same net you land your fish will work too.

you can also make a bait trap that works pretty well out of a 2L or 3L plastic soda bottle (or similar shape plastic bottle). Wash out the bottle. Remove the label. Cut around the "neck" where it just starts to taper. Invert the neck so that the open part of the bottle sticks inside the main part (pic related) Staple it together. Put some bait in there and a couple stones to weight it down. Attach some string to it then toss it in the water. Leave overnight, come back and find minnows, crawdads, etc, inside.

[Anonymous No.4858187]

>>4858176
How to you hook insects? Im interested and i've only used dead meat baits. Apparently you hook through the leg muscles for hoppers and crickets? Where on worms?

Im kind of worried when I go to cast, the hook doesn't have enough grip and it tears right through their flesh.

>>4858179
Aha! I saw those online, was pretty hesitant to do so, so i saved a couple bottles. I think if I put 5 or so in various spots I'll have me a decent catch - enough to make a stew or a few sammiches. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.4858202]

>>4858187

I hook hoppers and crickets through the thorax--the middle part of the body. Put the point of the hook through one side then have it come out the other side. That's what I've always done and it works for me, though perhaps someone can suggest a better way? I learned that through trial and error, if you hook them through the abdomen it tends to tear out.

I know of two ways of hooking worms, it's hard to describe so pic related. I usually do the method on the right hand side. I find it easier to do and I think it lets the worm wiggle more and thus be more attractive to the fish but there's always the chance that the hook can rip out.

[Anonymous No.4858206]

>>4858179

This design is also useful for trapping flying insects (fruit-flies) in your kitchen if you've got too many of those bastards in the summer. Balsamic vinegar or syrup in the bottom, seal the joint with tape instead of staples, good to go.

[Anonymous No.4858226]

>>4858114
All the edible species have been exhausted or pushed out by useless invasive species.
Feelsbadman.

[Anonymous No.4858238]

>>4858206

Yeah, I was looking for a photo of what I was talking about and the one I posted was actually from a site about building a DIY wasp trap.

>>4858202
For hooking the grasshopper, see pic related. It was the best I could find doing a quick google search, though I prefer to put the hook a little further back than what is shown in the photo. Make sure it goes through the thorax. If it goes through the head then it will fall off or the fish will bite it off.

[Anonymous No.4858245]

>>4858238

forgot my pic.

[Anonymous No.4858251]

>>4858245
This kills the grasshopper.

[Anonymous No.4858264]

When I lived in Florida, the best bait I've ever used was live shrimp
Cut them in half, and both ends still wiggle on the hook when you cast out
I was catching all sorts of little grunts and even a goddamn crab (almost) with them

(I thought I hooked a shoe or some shit, and was pulling the line up by hand, and suddenly there was this giant goddamn crab on the end of my line, nibbling on my shrimp, which let go right before getting to the dock)

[Anonymous No.4858278]

>>4858264
>tfw living in Florida and the only fresh crab I can get in my area is those odd land-crabs, which likely aren't safe to eat...

[Anonymous No.4858305]

>>4858264

Damn, crabs will try to eat just about anything. I've caught them on those colorful fake plastic worms before.

[Anonymous No.4858571]

>>4858278
I know a couple of guys who crab in the intracoastal... Like, literally in the marinas. They eat them. Daily. A lot of them. They also trap the land crabs. And eat them.

That concerns me. Those crabs smell rancid.

[ram No.4858595]

shad is the best bait, fresh from the cast net.

i wish i could eat fried catfish daily, but know better, so usually baked in butter sauce and topped with various veggies.

[Anonymous No.4858618]

>>4858264
Slugs are really good for crayfish, don't know about other fish. They're hard to cut through.

[Anonymous No.4859968]

>>4858571
Holy shit, are they ok

[Anonymous No.4860105]

>>4858142
Jesus that's depressing. 1 fish a month.

Colofag here. Mountain trout are pretty clean.

[Anonymous No.4860111]

sunfish/minnows... real men use live bait, the predatory catfish taste a lot better than the bottom feeders anyways.

Nothing beats a good fish fry

[Anonymous No.4860728]

>>4860105
Insect-eating fish are normally okay because they are not very high up on the food chain. Predator fish like bass, musky, pike, catfish, etc are all heavily polluted because they are the highest on the food chain in their ecosystems. Fish that only eat plants are the lowest fish on the food chain and have the lowest pollution levels.

[Anonymous No.4860749]

Steamed fish is the best way to cook fish.