Catfish is a large and amazing fish that inhabits most bodies of water with running water.
In addition, it can be found in reservoirs, as well as in large ponds or lakes. Under certain conditions, catfish can grow up to 5 meters in length and weigh about 400 kg. It is not so easy to catch such a specimen, especially since it is not so easy to pull it out of the water. Mostly, you come across individuals weighing no more than 15 kilograms. In some reservoirs, catching a catfish weighing 50 kg is a common occurrence.
Catfish are caught using completely different baits. The main condition is that the bait must be of animal origin. This can be live or dead fish, individual pieces of fish or meat, offal of poultry, frogs or snails, as well as fried sparrow or pigeon. The list of baits can consist of many items. Among this variety there is one fairly common and affordable bait, such as a worm or crawler. Naturally, ordinary, average worms are not listed here, but the crawling worm, which is enormous in size compared to the classic worm, is just what is needed. The crawler can catch specimens weighing from 2 to 15 kilograms, which is quite enough to get a lot of impressions. At the same time, you need to be prepared for the fact that a larger individual will want to try the bait.
Catfish respond with pleasure to such bait. In addition, a catfish weighing up to 2 kg can be used to crawl out, which cannot be said about baits such as live bait or a frog. Moreover, other, no less interesting fish, such as carp, carp, and large crucian carp, may be interested in the worm.
Tackle for catching catfish with a worm
As a rule, catfish are caught using a donk or a feeder, as it is now called. The main requirement is strength and reliability. In this case, you shouldn’t skimp on the rod, especially not use inexpensive Chinese rods. Catfish weighing 5 kg or more provide decent resistance and are capable of breaking weak tackle or breaking a telescopic fishing rod made in China.
A plug rod is used, consisting of two legs, 2.7-3.0 meters long.
A fishing line with a thickness of at least 0.5 mm is attached to the rod. The fishing line is selected based on the specimens that are constantly encountered. It’s better to play it safe and install a fishing line with a diameter of up to 1.0 mm. As for the braid, a diameter of 0.5 mm is quite enough.
Proportional to the power of the rod and fishing line, a spinning reel is selected that can accommodate up to 200 meters of fishing line of appropriate thickness (0.5 mm).
The hook will fit size 10 or larger. The hook should be attached to a leash, the thickness of which may be greater than the diameter of the main line.
When fishing from a boat, it is permissible to use the simplest bottom tackle. It consists of a reel with a special handle that simplifies the fishing process. In this case, the main requirement is convenience. The selection of other elements of the gear is carried out according to the same criteria. Long casts are not required here, so fishing is greatly simplified.
When is the best time to catch catfish on a donk?
It is better to catch catfish on the dock in the spring. On spring days, he often hides in the pits where he spent the winter. When the water warms up, they are already looking for it throughout the current. Since he began to cruise around looking for a place to hide.
In summer, catfish often stay in cool places, swimming out to the shallows behind the riffles at night to catch food. It happens in the stomach of a catfish, in addition to a frog or other aquatic inhabitant, and a bird that was near the water's edge, or even small mammals. Although a large catfish is not averse to eating a piglet.
Keep in mind that the catfish has poor eyesight, but it has an excellent sense of smell , and it also perfectly senses the movement of water masses, so without understanding the size of the intended food, it can attack larger prey for itself. Keep this in mind when choosing bait and be careful yourself.
In the evening, the catfish reveals itself with noisy splashes on the surface of the water.
In autumn, catfish take bait better in cloudy weather. Since it needs to quickly gain weight for wintering, it can often be found in places where bream, carp, and chub accumulate.
Techniques and tactics for catching catfish
To begin with, you should learn how to properly place a worm (crawl) on a hook. The main task is to disguise the hook as much as possible. For this purpose, a whole bunch of worms is placed on the hook. Moreover, such a bunch of moving worms will not leave a hungry catfish unattended. As a rule, from 2 to 4 huge worms (crawlers), pierced on all sides by the hook, are attached to the hook. At the same time, the hook must be securely hidden under the thickness of the bait. The catfish, before swallowing a tasty bunch of worms, will want to taste it. If, absolutely by accident, he gets stuck on the point of the hook, he will immediately refuse the bait.
If you throw a hook with one crawl, it is unlikely to interest the catfish, but it can interest other representatives of the underwater world, such as carp, tench, crucian carp, roach and others. In any case, fishing will be useful.
Correct creep attachment - video
hair crawler attachment
How to rig a worm to catch bream
Bream - this white fish also has a rather large mouth, but to successfully catch it, you also need to take into account some features.
- The best bait for bream is a dung worm. There are three ways to attach it to the hook:
- When fishing with bottom gear, the worm can be pierced in 2-3 places.
- The second method of putting on a worm can be compared to putting on a sock. That is, the entire body of the worm is strung on a hook, just like a sock on a foot. This is often used for float fishing.
- In the latter method, the worm is torn into pieces and placed on a hook. This method is very attractive to fish because it looks like a whole bunch of crawlers. Of course, you can not tear the worm apart, but use several whole ones at once. But bream is unable to open its mouth that much.
- What should the hook be like?
- First of all, spicy. A dull hook is unable to reliably hook a fish. You shouldn’t waste your money on replacing unsuitable gear.
- If you use a worm as bait, then it is better to take a hook with a long or medium shank.
- If you are planting mastyrka, corn or pearl barley, choose a medium-sized forend.
- For maggots, hooks with shanks from smaller to medium sizes are suitable.
- For bloodworms, take the middle number.
- The thickness of the hook should be medium. A thin sting gives an advantage to the bait - it is easily strung and remains mobile (if the bait is of a non-vegetative type), but loses when hooking bream. It can easily break off, breaking such a hook. A thick sting wins in hooking, but it is difficult to put the bait on such a bait.
- The bend can be one of three classic types: straight, inward and to the side; or the shape of a fly hook.
Several ways to properly mount a worm:
Where to look for catfish
You can catch a catfish, or you may not catch it if you throw the tackle wherever you look. In this case, you will have to wait a long time for a bite and leave fishing in vain. The first task is to find a promising place for fishing. The bait should be placed exactly in the place where the catfish is located. Catfish prefer to be in holes, and the deeper they are, the better for it. Therefore, you need to look for holes, pools and other deep-sea points. On a river, especially a winding one, it is easy to find catfish in the area of cliffs, where there is always a deep-water place. If aquatic vegetation is observed near a deep place, then this is certainly a catfish place.
In the daytime, the catfish tries to hide from direct sunlight, therefore, it may choose a place in the thickets of reeds or reeds. He will be happy to stop at a section of the water area that is closed by trees hanging over the water. If he does not have such an opportunity, then he simply moves to the depths and remains there until dark.
Under cover of night, the catfish leaves the pits and goes in search of food. At the same time, he does not like to go far from his favorite place. The catfish does not chase potential prey, but waits for it to swim to it. He prefers to be on his territory. If they are not large in size, there may be several individuals in one shelter.
If you carefully examine the surface of the water, you can easily determine the location of the catfish, especially during a thunderstorm. Since catfish hunt at night, it's worth listening to find out where they are. By these signs you can determine that the catfish is in its territory.
The best periods for catching catfish
Catfish is a nocturnal predator, so you will have to catch it at night. But the fishing spot should always be prepared, and for this, it is advisable to arrive at the fishing spot much earlier. After all, it is necessary to prepare the gear, set up the tent, set up the camp, and only after that should the gear be cast. The first bites are recorded before sunset, but, as a rule, it is young animals who bite. Larger specimens go hunting after sunset. You can catch catfish until the morning and up to 9 o’clock, after which the relevance of fishing is reduced to zero and you can reel in your fishing rods.
The effectiveness of night fishing can be significantly increased if you throw several donks. Basically, 4-5 tackles are thrown, after which bites are expected. As a rule, one of the fishing rods starts to bite, and all the others are either idle or they catch completely different fish.
A large catfish takes the bait and tries to go for cover. At the same time, the bite alarm is triggered. Under certain conditions, its resistance can puzzle even an experienced fisherman. He offers significant resistance. Sometimes it is simply impossible for one fisherman to cope with his resistance, and fishing turns into a duel between the catfish and the fisherman.
Night fishing for catfish is a fascinating type of fishing, which involves one of the types of outdoor recreation. As a rule, fishermen combine business with pleasure and do not forget to try barbecue in nature. In between bites, you have the opportunity to simply lie down or chat on any topic.
Catching catfish is not only an interesting event, but also quite dangerous. This is especially true if fishing is done from a boat. If you catch catfish from a boat, it is almost impossible to cope with a large specimen alone. Moreover, a catfish can easily turn over a boat, and with it a fisherman. Considering the fact that fishing is carried out at night, it is very difficult to navigate in such conditions. Therefore, the result can be very disastrous.
What bait does catfish like?
Catfish are not picky predators, and you can catch them with many baits and use a variety of lures. The catfish is a predator, mostly bottom-dwelling and, in some way, a scavenger, so there are some requirements for the type of bait.
You can read more about catfish in the articles:
Where does the common catfish live and live?
What and when to catch catfish: spring, summer and autumn
The catfish must be lured, since it lives and feeds at great depths, it is very careful and pulling it out of the hole is quite problematic.
For these purposes, they usually use a special device called a kwok, but in my opinion it is only good as an addition and requires certain skills and a boat to use it. In my opinion, it will be more effective to use good baits.
In this article, we decided to look in more detail at what baits catfish love and which ones are most effective and how to use them.
The following are good baits for catfish:
Earthworms - These are easy to find after rains, can be found under logs or simply bought at a fishing store.
Dung worms - live mainly in compost, are red in color, can be bought at a fishing store.
Maggot - sold in stores, or you can breed it yourself if you live outside the city, suitable as a bait on a hook, but poorly suited as bait.
Animal intestines - bird intestines are best suited for catfish, since they are more familiar to them, they are easy to find if you know farmers or hunters, they can be frozen and used after defrosting.
Liver - any beef, pork, chicken or turkey is suitable, you can use both fresh and fresh. You can make an excellent bait for catfish from the liver, for this you need:
Grind the liver, add bloodworms there, mix everything with dried soil from a pond or mole holes. Balls are formed from the resulting mixture and thrown into a pond for several days. This bait also works well for burbot.
Minced meat - any is suitable, you don’t need the freshest one, make the bait according to the recipe above, as for the liver.
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Fish – fish such as bream and bleak are good baits. Can be used both as bait and as bait. For bait, the fish should be cut into small portions, mixed with fish oil (you can find it in carp stores or pharmacies), add dry blood (albumin), small dumplings with the taste of halibut, everything is mixed and thrown from a boat in the habitats of the catfish.
Dried blood is difficult to find, you need familiar farmers, albumin is not suitable. The blood must be dried, or you can sometimes buy dried blood in fishing stores, do not make powder out of it, you need blood clots. They are placed in metal cans or plastic bottles with holes made in them, the can must be weighed down and lowered to the bottom, be sure to install floats so as not to litter the pond. Eels often come to this bait.
Almost all types of worms make excellent bait; they should be used in the form of a large bunch. As bait, they should be used with other components from the list above.
Near the bait sites you can install girders. Catfish feed in holes 4 to 8 meters deep, so bait must be placed in such holes. It should be fed at night, as it is a nocturnal predator. Eel is often caught along with catfish.
It is most effective to lure catfish over several days.
After throwing the bait, catfish can be successfully caught using artificial bait or bottom gear.
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Dmitry Vyborg
Treasure Hunter, Fisherman, Hunter
