Chumming for cats

[Ron]

Have any of you ever used any kind of chum when fishing for cats?  If so, I would like to hear how you did it, what you used for chum, and how you distributed it into the water? 

I fish Lake Barkley in western Kentucky and have excellent success with both channel and blue cats.

Ron
rmilliman@insightbb.com

[catfished]

Hi Ron,

Welcome to the forums. Unfortunately, chumming in inland waters is illegal in most of California. It is allowed in some areas of the Sacramento Delta but I haven't fished for cats there.

A couple of common chumming methods for catfish that I have read or heard about are chopped up cut baits placed in an onion sack weighted down with rocks and cans of dog food and or cheap tuna packed in oil that have been perforated and sunk in your fishing area.

You can find a lot of good info on catfish chumming by simply searching for "catfish chum" on Google or any popular search engine.

Good luck.

[Greg_Cornish]

Can you just feed the fish?

[BJC]

  As a kid we took a couple of cheap cans of fish-flavored catfood and pitched them out after we poked them full of holes with a "church-key" type can opener but I'm not sure that it helped all that much in a small lake wihout a current.

  Reminds me of a time when I was feeding some white bread to the bluegills in the deeper end of a small farm pond...  After about 5 minutes I see the big grey head and wide mouth of an 8 pound white cat appear from below trying to suck up the crumbs and smaller pieces that were slowly sinking to the bottom...   Needless to say, The blue gills "took a break" and let him have his fill.  I would of expected a carp but not a cat... Kind of funny the type of things that a guy can learn "by accident" just by spending time on the water...

[Greg_Cornish]

Fishing for carp with bread dough we caught quite a few accidental cats in library park. Up to 20 lbs

[HamBo]

Shouldn't You tie some Line to the CatFood Can so You can bring it up and throw it away later? I hate catching cans

[catfished]

Shouldn't You tie some Line to the CatFood Can so You can bring it up and throw it away later? I hate catching cans

Good point HamBo

[stephenb23]

I've heard from the old timers that they would used a can of creamed corn.  Of course, that's illegal now.  (Might have been then, but I'm not 100% sure on that.)

[cdferguson]

stephenb23

I have written a number of articles on chumming for catfish. It is a pretty popular catfishing technique here in Texas. You can check them out here, they might be helpful to you.

http://learntocatchcatfish.com/?s=chumming