favorite baits

[catmaster12]

What are your guys favorite baits for channels?

[newfisherman]

I like using liver

[Smoothkip]

Cut shad, live or cut chubs and live green eared sunfish are my top three!

[Catfishrollo]

My favorites are chubs, suckers, bullheads, greensunfish, warmouth, shad, smallmouth, carp... LOL.. If its a live, I like it! However, I prefer certain baits at certain times throughout the year. ;D rollo

[catmaster12]

Cool guys thanks. I usually use chubs and chicken liver but never used anything else. Anyone ever tried when u put a live one and skin another on? That seems to work good for me.

[Smoothkip]

You mean skin a side of a live chub? I've done this before.

[catmaster12]

Yeah i always do that it works for channels but flatheads to my friend caught a 15 pounder of the skin a side it works great

[katfish]

Catmaster

I normally let the channel cats tell me what they want so
I don't have to decide what I want to use for bait.

Since channel cats can change their preferred food source
at any given time, I developed a sure fire method to
determine what they want each day.

The first channel cat you catch will reveal what he has
been eating by cutting open his stomach and viewing
the contents Spills his guts so to speak.

Now before some brainiac can whine catch and release
I will explain further.

If you intend to release your channel cat, you can still
discover what he has been eating. Scientists put little
hoses into fish to blow stomach contents into a tray
and then examine it. You do not have to have that
equipment or be in that big of a hurry.
If you put that channel cat into a bucket for a few minutes
his stress response will be to purge. He will disgorge
the contents of his stomach revealing his last meals and
you can send him on his way.

Some of the expert catmen will tell you that just because
a channel cat was chocked full of crawdads doesn't mean
they would ever eat another one. You may find a fish or 2
that has vomitted during your fight and his stomach is empty.

Don't be to dismayed to discover none of the channel cats are
full of hot dogs--chicken livers--Joes garlic stink bait. Also it
may take some time to understand the stomach contents if
they are partially digested or contain mixes of things you
have never seen.

But as much as I hate to agree with fly fishermen, we
also should match the hatch.

[rockbass]

I'll keep my reply simple.
Lakes I prefer shad most of the time. My local river I prefer live gills or chubs. Gills tend to not get hit by smallmouth, saugeye, or gar like the chubs do so it eliminates most of the hits by nondesirables

[catmaster12]

Thanks Robby. When we do eat the channels my dad does the filleting and we always check the stomach. Are latest channel had a hole bunch of algea in it. One had about 5 crawldads. and others just have chubs and stuff of that nature ha. But yeah they have a wide variety in food range. Rockbass ur right I usually use chubs though.

[riverrunt]

I like sucker minnows dead or alive,chubs same way and sometimes i use krogers bait(chicken livers) shhhhhh dont tell anyone when im outta bait in freezer.

[Catfishrollo]

Thats ok.. Runt... We use livers too on the rivers! rollo

[catmaster12]

Yeah we do to Rollo and Runt but only a few times.

[oneleggedjosh]

I think my best bait would be cut bluegills, or shrimp.

[Smoothkip]

I've caught a lot of channels on shrimp also Josh!