Channel Cats On Dip Bait

    It doesn’t get more Midwest than this…at least in the southern portion of the area. Remember opening up one of those tubs of cheese or blood bait for the first time? It practically made your eyes water..., or worse.     Sporting goods stores and tackle shops probably hated when a customer did that - but those baits did work.                  Longtime guide, outdoor writer and Fishing Hall of Famer, Ted Peck, is here with a 1990 piece on channel cats and dip baits, from back when magazines started recognizing and writing more detailed articles on catfish in general....

Highlights:

Dip baits and dip worms (short plastic worms with ridges that are anointed with a catfish-attracting mixture) have been catfish killers in some parts of the country for years. Doc's Catfish Bait, a product of Iowa, has been around since the 1920s. Other dip baits with local favor like Sonny's, G&S, Ol' Whiskers and Dunkers of a more modern genre work magic on catfish, too. Even Walmart sells these baits, nowadays. That ought to tell you that people at least buy a lot of it....if it didn't work, it would soon disppear from store shelves.

The basic spincast tackle back then is the same gear we still have today. You don't need anything fancy for catfish. But the gear had better have guts. A Zebco 404 mounted on a seven-foot, medium rod is ideal. Ten-to-twelve pound test mono will get the job done. If a worm gets hung up, a steady pull will usually retrieve it without spooking the fish.

Terminal tackle is just as simple. An assortment of egg-shaped slip-sinkers from 1/16 to 3/8-ounce, some snap-swivels and a roll of paper towels is about all you need, other than a good assortment of treble-tailed dip worms in different colors. (The paper towels are to make sure the soft plastic worms are completely dry before dunking then in the bait.)

An eighth-ounce sinker is usually the most effective weight to use when fishing from a boat. This sinker is heavy enough to maintain contact with the bottom, but isnt so heavy that it digs into every snag that it meets.

Channel catish generally prefer a bit of a current and fairly clean bottom, preferably with sand or rock & rubble substrata. In lakes, this is achieved by fishing on windward shores where the wind-pushed waters create movement and stack food. In rivers look for slack areas along the edge of the main flow. In either case, the fish tend to spend their time relating to deeper areas, and come into shallower shores to feed.     

In cold weather, try mixing the dip bait with cooking oil to get the desired consistency. In warmer climes, the bait may become too runny and not adhere to the hook. In this case, just put the bait in the shade or an ice-filled cooler next to your lunch to remedy the problem. Mixing in a little corn meal also works.