Doughball Delight, Rice, Peanut Butter, Wheat And Soap

To sweeten up your catfishing and bring more cats to your hooks, try these recipes, which also will chum in carp. Put flour, cornmeal and creamed-style corn in a large mixing bowl. Pour pineapple juice into the flour mixture, and mix it to make a dough. Continue to add flour and pineapple juice until you form a large ball of dough. Next, pour in uncooked rice, mixing it into the dough. Put the dough in a large Ziploc freezer bag, and take it to where you plan to fish.

You can place this mixture in a burlap bag and sink it in a lake. Or, before you begin fishing, pinch off pieces of the doughball, and throw them out into your general fishing area. Also save enough of the doughball to use for bait. After you've scattered the pieces of doughball along the bottom, bait with a doughball. Cast it out into the same area where you've chummed. The pineapple juice in the doughball quickly will put out a scent and taste in the water. As the rice starts to swell, it will add to that scent and taste.

With this technique, you can chum cats in and catch them all day and night. Only use chumming tactics in areas with little or no current.

You also can bait a hole for cats by using whole rice. Buy the cheapest rice you can find, and plan to use one box or bag per hole that you plan to bait. The most productive places to put the rice include main river points with no current, creek intersections where two underwater creeks join, where a creek channel runs into the main river channel or sloughs and bays off the main river.

Scatter the rice in the area you plan to fish. The rice will sink to the bottom, swell up and give off an odor that calls cats. After you've baited three or four holes with rice, go back to fish the first hole. When the cats quit biting at that spot, move to your next baited hole.

John "Junnie" Mihalakis of Iowa, a longtime avid catfisherman, makes commercial catfish baits. He also has a favorite stink bait recipe that uses 80% 3-year-old cheese, 5% calf starter that you can purchase at any feed store, 5% dried animal blood, 5% peanut butter and flour. Mix the cheese, calf starter, dried animal blood and peanut butter together, blending until creamy. Slowly add the flour a little at a time, and continue blending until you achieve the right consistency. You'll catch plenty of cats if you dip Cat Tracker Catfishing Worms, either the Egg or the Tubie, in the mixture immediately before you fish.

Lomax Dunham catches catfish every time he goes fishing. He uses a secret technique to lure cats into main river points, the intersections of river channels and creek channels and the backs of small bays off the main rivers. "You want to bait the place where you've caught cats in the past," Dunham said.

Dunham starts by filling a 5-gallon bucket about 3/4 full of wheat. He then adds four cloves of garlic and five squeezed lemons and covers the top of the wheat with water. He lets the mixture sit for one to two weeks to insure thorough fermentation of the wheat, continuing to add water as it evaporates. Then he takes a plastic scoop and the bucket of wheat with him whenever he goes catfishing.

According to Dunham, "I spread the wheat on the tops of points, along the edges of creek channels or in the backs of bays that I want to fish. Generally 5 gallons of wheat will bait up three to four spots for catfish. After I've spread the wheat on the three or four places I want to fish, I'll come back and anchor up on the first spot and begin to fish. Usually the cats are already feeding on the wheat in the first spot when I arrive. So, all I have to do is bait with worms and fish on the bottom."

Dunham warns that if you use this wheat-baiting formula you need to leave the bucket of wheat well away from the house. "Also don't get any of the wheat on your hands or in your boat because it really stinks, and you can't get rid of the smell."

When fishing for catfish in cool water, use Ivory soap. The cooler the water the better the soap works, because it disintegrates in water with less flow. Put the bars of soap on a cookie sheet and heat them in a 250- to 300-degree oven until the soap becomes soft and pliable but not runny. Remove the soap from the oven and cut it into 1/2- to 1-inch chunks. Bait the soap on your hooks and watch what happens.

You'll find this bait particularly productive for trotline fishing. The soap gives off the smell and the taste that calls catfish and its white appearance enables the cat to see the bait easily. But I have encountered a problem with using soap as a stink bait for catfish. Often the lye in the soap eats the points off the hooks causing you to have to replace the hooks more often than you would if you used other baits.

Editor's Note: Check with your local Department of Conservation to make sure you can use soap in the area where you want to catfish.

To learn more about how anglers fish for catfish all across the country, go to Night Hawk Publications' Home Page (www.nighthawkpublications.com), and click on fishing books to see "The Masters Secrets of Catfishing."

Tomorrow: Put The Dogs on Catfish