Griffond Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 Hi all I stumbled across this site while looking for info on painting and making fishing lures... my kids and I kinda got into it a few years back when a local pawn shop owner sold me a whole bunch of old spoons that the kids and I restored. Then is kind of went from there...and just in the last year and a half we've all kind of gotten into musky fishing and I knew I going to have to start making my own lures then since they are just crazy expensive here for half decent ones. I'll thank you all in advance for any advice and will try to pitch in what I can when I can. D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayburnGuy Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 Welcome to TU Griffond. There are quite a few musky fishermen here who I'm sure will be more than happy to help you along in your bait building. The search feature can be your best friend when it comes to looking for answers and when you can't find what your looking for just post your question and we'll do our best to help. good luck, Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Braided Line Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 Welcome aboard........... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffond Posted March 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 60degrees here today time to hit the ole mississippi up to see if there is a winter catfish hiding in there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffond Posted March 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 (edited) No catfish but the smallies were biting pretty good not that you can keep them or anything. Edited March 10, 2012 by Griffond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeking 56 Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Gotta love another musky fisherman who chases cats! Welcome! Incidentally, what's your favorite bait for cats? I do well with raw shrimps. s54 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffond Posted March 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Don't know yet this is actually the first year I am going to get a chance to try it fully since I now live really close to the large point in the mississippi river... I've been trying dead minnows, and some store bought stink bait, live minnows, crawlers... nothing other then small mouth bass yet... we'll see has the water warms up a little more... the average size cat in the part of river I am in... is only like 3-10lbs so nothing monster size just good eating size... got go farther south of the cities to get into the big monsters... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayburnGuy Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 If your fishing for channel cats I used to make a bait that worked really well for them. If you want to try it these are the things you will need. #1 A few bars of unscented, white soap. #2 A couple of 4 0z. bottles of Smelly Jelly in the crawfish scent #3 Beef blood (bull blood works the best as it seems to coagulate better) Strain the blood through a pair of pantyhose. This will filter all the watery fluid from the blood. Set aside for now. Now take the bars of soap and grate it with the coarse side of a cheese grater. Now you will need two large pots. One that will fit fairly tight down onto the other and still leave enough room in the bottom to be filled up with water. We are going to make a large double boiler. By the way, it's best to do this outside with a propane burner. Take the first pot and fill the bottom with water and then place the other pot on top of the first one. The tighter it fits the better the double boiler will work, but don't force the two pots together. Steam needs to be allowed to escape. Once the water is boiling pour just a little water into the top pot. This is so the soap doesn't get scorched. Now start putting the soap shavings into the top pot. Add more soap shavings as they melt. Keep an eye on how fluid the melted soap is. You don't want a lot of water in it, but like I said before it needs a small amount of water in it to keep it from scorching. Keep adding the soap shavings until you have all of them melted. Now pour in the two bottles of Smelly Jelly. Once you have the Smelly Jelly stirred in start adding some of the beef blood. Around here they sell the beef blood by the gallon and unless your making a huge batch you won't need the whole gallon. Use just enough blood to give the soap a reddish color. If it seems a little thin you can continue cooking it until some of the water has evaporated. You don't want it soupy because it will take too long to dry. After all the cooking is done you want to pour the concoction into a shallow, flat cooking pan and let it cool. I like to pour it so it is about one inch thick. That way I can cut it into one inch squares and end up with one inch cubes for bait. If it seems too soft to stay on a hook after it's completely cooled set it out in the sun so whatever water is left in it can evaporate. This may seem like a lot of trouble, but this stuff worked better for me than any bait I could buy. We used to bait trot lines with it in the spring and although I've never tried it hand fishing it always worked really well on our lines. If you decide to try it let me know how it works for you. Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffond Posted March 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Thanks for the tip Ben, I got a ton of Ivory laying around since no one uses it... (my wife used to use it in water testing stuff) I'll have to look into the blood part... It's a pain in the butt around here just to find chicken livers even... I mite have to improvise with some pest control or something of the sort ;-) and I am not sure where to get smelly jelly...but I'll look around... I was going to buy a bag of the berkley gulp catfish baits and give them a try since I've had good luck with other gulp products in the past have you or anyone else used them at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayburnGuy Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 (edited) I've never used the Gulp myself. The beef blood you will have to get from a slaughter house. That's the only place I can get it down here. The Smelly Jelly can be found at tackle shops. It's intended use is for application to plastics used by bass fishermen. And there's no reason you couldn't use some other type of crawfish scented attractant. I used the Smelly Jelly because it was readily available and I liked the paste over the liquid for this purpose. good luck, Ben Edited March 18, 2012 by RayburnGuy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
