Fished an overnighter on Wednesday and had my usual blank, failed miserably to catch a livebait but during the night I was sitting watching the water, thinking what to try next. The grass was covered in slugs, on most nights there is plenty of them crawling around at this venue. Anyway it got me thinking about using them as a bait, I have had many a Chub on the River Dane on a freelined slug, I was wondering if anyone has actually used them as bait for catfish, if so have they caught on them ?
was going to say, you dont know if you dont try.
No I did not try them as I was persevering with worms and popped up deadbaits, as I am new to catfish fishing I tend to stick to tried and trusted baits and methods in an attempt to break my duck. I supppose you could say thats where I am going wrong, in that I am doing the same as most others people. I am running out of time this season and am away on my hols for a couple of weeks now but when I get back if the slugs are still about I am going to put one rod on them and see what happens.
Were other people catching on the lake Dave? if not then by using the same baits and tactics often the result will be the same as theirs i.e bugger all. Sometimes something different can work, especially if the water is heavily fished. Also if the cats aren't really feeding that well then the best bait is often a livey. A livey will often trigger the cats predatory instinct and so it will strike at it whereas it may well ignore a static bait.
The only other advise is dont try too hard, you only put pressure on yourself. The biggest factor to catching a cat is being there when they are feeding. Time with baits in the water is far more important than endlessly tinkering with rigs, baits etc. You end up doing your own head in and your fishing suffers. Trust me i know the feeling. i blanked the whole of last season! This season, using the same methods as i used last year, i have landed 9 cats to 45lb. The biggest difference in my fishing this year is that i've only fished 2 waters instead of chasing fish all over the place. You have at least 2 months left yet of decent catting weather, so there is plenty of time. Stick at it and i'm sure it will all come good.
Best of luck,
Dave
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