The Pikers Pit

I'm fishing a lake which holds catfish, the downside is it'll be late October so my chances might be very slim but worth putting a bait out I think just incase.

I'm leaning towards using dead baits like Sardines and possibly lumps of Spam.

What size hooks would you recommend I use?

I'll be fishing for the Carp etc during the day and will put a bait in for a few hours in the evening for the Catfish.
I don't think the catfish population is very big but there are also Sturgeon present.

Regards

Martin

Catch a roach and look at the size of the mouth against the size of hook you're using. scale that up to a cat and you could probably get away using a gaff. The bigger the hook the better has always for me been a better choice. But it will also depend on the venue and size of cat in the water. if the water has a lot of snags you will need to bully the fish away from them so a size 6 carp hook will probably fail. With the very hard pads in the mouth the hook will probably not penetrate those if using a small carp hook. have a look at the Catfish Pro or Madcat websites and welcome to the dark side.........

2/0 circles for me 28mm haibut, hair rigged plus a stringer of same 5 or 6 seem to do it ok

Cheers guys

Regards

Martin

Why just a night for the Cats

Big baits and the Carps wont touch them.

If your using halibut pellets soak them in oil for a few days or make 2" boilsy.

Grant

Crackoff wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30 2023 19:55 -

Why just a night for the Cats

Big baits and the Carps wont touch them.

If your using halibut pellets soak them in oil for a few days or make 2" boilsy.

Grant

True, I'll more than likely be using margin pole during the day so I could put 1 rod out for a pussycat as well

Regards

Martin

for hooks that double as Carp/Cat hooks I like the Korda Krank X in a size 4. Got to be the X though because of the heavier gauge.

For a dedicated Cat hook I like the Catmaster eagle wave in size 1

avoid any hook designed for carp and carp tackle unless kittens
look on catmaster for them as good quality gear,generally i use 4/0-6/0 owner circles for liveys and a vmc pattern similar to a catmaster bp hook for pellet and deads in 2/0-4/0
i've used mustad tope and conger hooks i the past

We had quite a few ton-up cats on the Ebro on Fox Series 1 carp hooks in size 1. Never had one straighten. That was about 15 years ago and they’re discontinued now. I went up to 3/0 ?catmaster hooks when using bigger baits of 3+ halibut pellets.

Dave R wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23 2024 22:04 -

We had quite a few ton-up cats on the Ebro on Fox Series 1 carp hooks in size 1. Never had one straighten. That was about 15 years ago and they’re discontinued now. I went up to 3/0 ?catmaster hooks when using bigger baits of 3+ halibut pellets.

i think i still have some of them ,marked up as fox super specialist and were what i used in france which will have been 2008 when we drove down to Morroco and had two weeks fishing
on the way home