Planning a Pregame Fish Fry?...Try Chicken Livers!

Fall in the Midwest hosts some of the best weather of the year. One of my favorite Fall traditions is having the neighbors over for a fish fry before a Chiefs game. It seems like everything is biting this time of year. As the water cools the Crappie are starting to come on, the Bass are hitting pretty good, and the Wipers are still frisky. There are many species that will fry up nicely, but nothing will fill up a stringer, or a frying pan like small to medium size channel cats.

Harvest size channel cats can be found in almost any lake, pond, river, or creek. They are aggressive feeders that will take a large variety of bait, and are a heck of a lot of fun to catch. If you are looking to catch a mess of fish for your football fish fry, all you have to do is stop by the grocery store on the way home.

Chicken livers may be the oldest trick in the book for a reason...they work. Chicken livers are cheap and easily obtainable at almost any local grocery store or bait shop. However, many fishermen get frustrated and are unsuccessful using livers because they can be extremely difficult to keep on a hook. Fish will often steal your bait, or worse, you will simply launch your bait into the upper atmosphere when you cast. I have seen people tying their livers up with string, and even dropping them in panty hose to keep them together. It doesn't have to be that hard. Here are a couple of easy adjustments that will put you in the liver game, and help you catch your limit.

Temperature Matters

Just like Goldie Locks, not too hot, and not too cold. Frozen livers that are solid are hard to get a hook in, and can be extremely brittle. They simply break up when you try to put a hook through. 

Conversely, warm livers are even harder to use because they get soft and fall off the hook like an egg yolk. The trick, is to let the livers thaw enough to get soft, but not so much that they they lose their consistency. If you can buy them chilled, but not frozen, they are usually perfect for fishing. If you have to buy them frozen, or you forgot to pull them out of the deep freeze you are still in business. Leave them in the sun in the back of the truck on the way to the lake. I have also had success thawing them out by cutting small holes in the containers and setting them in shallow water.

It's All About The Treble

Using a treble hook instead of a single gives you a couple of key advantages. The first advantage is grip. Treble hooks give you three hooks to wrap the liver around instead of one. Take a single piece of liver. Press the liver onto the hook making sure it gets hooked on all three points. 

The other major advantage is hooking potential. I have found that often times when using a single hook, fish will grab a small piece of the liver and rip it off the hook, stealing your bait. Treble hooks make it difficult for a crafty cat to grab part of the bait without getting hooked. 

Weight it down

Nothing is more frustrating than casting out to the perfect spot only to see your bait fly off. Adding a little weight to your line with a sinker will help keep your liver on the hook by helping your line pull freely from the spool, thus taking the stress off of your bait at the end of your line. I prefer to use a Carolina Rig with a 1/2oz Bell Sinker above the swivel. 

Keep your finger on the trigger

Even with the perfect set up fish can still rob your bait if you are slow on the trigger. Keep your pole in hand. Maintain a tight line. When you get a bite give your pole a quick tap in the opposite direction to set the hook. Do not yank the pole as hard as you can. You are not trying to hook a fifty pound flat head. Yanking too hard will likely rip the hook right out of the fish's mouth.

The best eating fish are in the 2lb-5lb range and are adequately abundant. Use these steps and you could be hosting your fish fry in time for the Chiefs on Monday Night Football next week! Don't forget to keep an eye out for length and creel limits in your fishing waters.

Let Me Float An Idea...  

46 lb Flathead
Hillsdale Lake

{“Floating your bait may be the key to landing big cats this fall.”}

Don’t get stuck on the bottom. If you are fishing exclusively on the bottom you may be missing out on a lot of fun at the top of the water.

A lot of us cat fisherman starting out try the same old trick. Take a chunk of bait. Weight it down. Lob it out to the deepest hole we can find. This method will work, eventually. When we fish with our bait on the bottom we are playing the odds that we are placing our bait where the fish already are, and that one will stumble across it. This method can be effective, but time consuming. What if there was a way to get fish to come to your bait? There is, and it is probably already in your tackle box.

Bobbers, floats, and corks come in an endless variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, but they all have one purpose. They make things float. Floating your bait may be the key to landing big cats this fall.

The Angle of the Dangle

Cover some distance. One serious advantage to keeping your bait off the bottom is allowing your bait to cover more area. When you fish the bottom your bait is stationary. Using a float allows your bait to do the work of finding the fish for you. Simply cast upwind/upstream of the area of water you are wanting to fish and let the wind/current do the rest. If the fish are not actively searching for food, the movement of the cork could very well dangle your bait in front of a potential catch.

{"The sound of a bait fish at the top of the water will draw in catfish like a coyote to a squealing cottontail."}

Try different depths. The distance between your bobber and your hook determine how deep you are fishing. The greater the distance, the deeper your bait is. This allows you to cover different depths of the water where fish may be hanging out. If you aren’t having luck on the bottom, move your bobber down and fish more shallow water. Try different depths until you start getting bites.

Send a special delivery. Is there a spot in the water you really want to cast, but you are afraid of getting snagged in the nearby brush pile or tree? Don’t risk losing that rig you just spent ten minutes tying up. Get upwind/upstream of the spot you want to fish and let your bait float down to that perfect spot.

Call ‘Em In

So you mastered the bobber when you were seven, and you have moved on to more advanced techniques? Maybe it’s time to get back to your roots if you want to catch the big ones.

Flathead, Blues, and Channel cats have their differences, but there is one thing they can’t resist; live bait fish. There is nothing more tempting to a big cat than a 4”-8” blue gill struggling on the end of a hook. The sound of a bait fish at the top of the water will draw in catfish like a coyote to a squealing cottontail.

I like to use a {link} Carolina rig with a pole float  just above the swivel, and a short leader (6”-8”). Look for places where bait fish are normally found near cover or deeper water. When the cats come out of cover to feed they will be attracted by the sound of your bait, and come looking for you. This is the same basic principal that we use on limb lines. Any experienced limb line fisherman will tell you that the closer to the top of the water you keep your bait, the better your chances. We’ve all seen those monsters people pull out on limb lines.

I used this method just last night at a small lake and had three channels in the 5 lb range within thirty minutes. My daughters also had fun helping me catch the blue gill we used for bait.

Remember, cat fishing requires a lot of patience. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t catch a fish in the first ten minutes. Most importantly, you will never catch a fish if you don’t have bait in the water. 

15lb,14lb Flatheads
Middle Creek Lake fishing a pole float in 3' of  water with live blue gill