Yuri 07/03/2020 1090
Catfish fishing is shrouded in mystery for many fishing enthusiasts. This is explained by ignorance of the habits of fish and its food preferences. An effective way to catch a river giant is to catch catfish using the liver. Having set out to catch a nocturnal predator, a fisherman must know where and when to look for this fish, and which method is best to use.
Catfish is a large and formidable representative of the fish fauna of fresh water bodies. Under natural conditions, it can reach truly gigantic sizes. In 2021, in the Astrakhan region, near the village of Zamiany, local fishermen caught a trophy specimen weighing 200 kilograms. In Astrakhan, catching catfish using chicken liver is one of the most catchy ways to catch a night monster.
How to put a liver on a hook
Since the liver is a fairly soft bait, it can easily fly off the hook. Often the fish manages to easily pull it off the hook. There are several ways to avoid such annoying losses.
In the first case, a small piece of women's stockings is cut off and a bag is made from it. We place the liver in this bag and tie it with a thread. This bait is used on carp and hair rigs. Or you can simply hang it on a hook, as shown in the picture. The result is a fairly voluminous bait that the small fish cannot knock off the hook. In general, it turns out that the hook seems to be buried in the nozzle. This method of baiting is designed so that the fish will swallow the bait. Yes, bites will be rare, but only large fish will bite.
Another successful way to attach the liver is to tie it with a thread. You probably won't be able to do it the first time. But with a little practice, you can learn this simple task. A simpler option using rubber bands. With their help, pellets are attached to the hook. Only in our case it is necessary to use slightly larger elastic bands. You can take children's elastic bands, which are used for weaving various crafts. They look like this.
Another option is to attach the liver to a size 8 tee. The liver is threaded onto each hook and a reliable fixation is obtained. In this case, it doesn’t even matter how hard the liver is. We insert it so that the stings completely come out of the pulp.
How to choose hooks
Just 10-15 years ago it was impossible to buy hooks for catfish in a store, and they were made from steel wire in artisanal conditions. The quality of hooks affects the result of any fishing, let alone catfishing. Now Somyatnik fishermen have freedom, because any fishing store sells hooks of the required size and wire diameter inexpensively.
The availability of catfish hooks helps the fisherman to have several options in stock and already on the pond to determine which one is better.
Expert opinion
Vladimir Poltoranin
Fisherman - expert
Single hooks are definitely the choice for catching catfish! Beginners think that if you equip the tackle with a treble hook, this will not affect the deterioration of the bite, but the equipment will be more reliable. But do not forget that when fishing, the tee can get caught on bottom debris or snags and the treasured trophy will be freed. And in terms of camouflage, a single hook is preferable.
You need to check the sharpness of the tip before each cast to be sure of a reliable hook. This is not a small thing that you don’t have to pay attention to, especially when catching large fish. Each element of catfish gear must correspond to the assigned tasks.
Hooks with a long shank are used when fishing with a bunch of worms or a mole cricket; in this case, the nozzle will completely cover the body of the hook. But the sting is left open, so that at the slightest touch of the fish to the bait, the hook will do its job and catch the fish. The hook number is chosen depending on the expected weight of the trophy and it is better to use special hooks for catching catfish.
How to catch chub with liver
When fishing for chub, a rod up to 3 meters long is used. A section of the river with a fast current and whirlpools is selected. The rig is thrown downstream. We fish with one fishing rod, as we often have to change our fishing spot. Fishing for the liver of a chub does not require the fisherman to stay in one place. This is mobile fishing. It is better to hold the fishing rod in your hands, as its bites are very greedy and often the rod can end up in the water without supervision. What equipment is suitable for chub fishing? Most often, a fishing line with a thickness of 0.3 mm is used, on which a sliding weight runs. A leash with a diameter of 0.25 with a hook on a long fore-end No. 6-8 is attached to the end. If it is a tee, then No. 8, and if it is a single, then No. 6.
The weight of the sinker is selected based on the strength of the current. Typically it varies from 40 to 80 grams. It is necessary that it moves slightly downstream. The length of the leash, as we see, is quite large, approximately 60-70 cm. This is the optimum that will allow you to feed the bait as naturally as possible and make it moveable under the influence of the current. Moving bait provokes the chub to bite.
Usually chub fishing looks like this. The equipment is thrown to a promising point. This could be an area with a rip current, where the water churns or the current changes direction slightly. We cast it and wait 5-10 minutes for a bite. If it is not there, we throw it at another point: under a snag or on a hole, and again wait a little. We fish a place for 30-40 minutes and move to another if there are no bites.
If a large chub bites, then after fishing there is a pause of 15-20 minutes. Under no circumstances should you change your location. Chubs prefer to sit in the same places. You just have to wait out this time and you can again count on biting and catching fish.
Selection of gear for catfish fishing
This strong fish is large in size and can weigh up to 120 kg. Individuals of this size are often found in the Lower Volga. Once hooked, such a monster can give a solid rebuff to the fisherman. In a tough battle with this voracious predator, you will need the right gear.
It is important to choose the right powerful fishing rod, which should be made of metal or fiberglass. Models made of composite material are also suitable.
The length of the rod can be very large, up to 3.3 m. It is best if it is equipped with reinforced rings. The test weight of such a rod should be up to 200 grams. Since in most pits there are strong currents that can drag loads weighing 100 or 120 g.
They can easily be carried away under some snag and then getting them out will be very difficult, and in most cases, completely impossible. Thus, a heavy load is essential for reliable and precise fixation of the equipment at the bottom of the selected fishing spot.
It’s good if the rod is equipped with an inertial reel (models like “Nevskaya” are suitable) and a multiplier or a strong “meat grinder” of such series as 4000 or 5000. A reel with a multiplier is the best choice. Because here you can count on a well-adjusted friction clutch and reliable, strong traction, which can be compared to a winch. Such help is invaluable in the fight against large catfish.
Monofilament or braided line
When choosing between monofilament line and braided line , it is better to prefer the latter option. Since braided cord has a number of advantages. For example, with a similar strength parameter, its diameter is significantly smaller, which allows for longer casts and less sailing in intense currents.
For regular catfish, a cord with a diameter of 0.4 to 0.6 mm is suitable. But if you are fishing for catfish using chicken liver with the goal of catching a trophy specimen, it is better to take cords with a diameter of 0.7-0.8 mm.
It is better to choose large, single, forged hooks. However, if you don’t have any at hand, you can get by with large double and triple models.
You need to choose the different swivels and fasteners very carefully. Ordinary products of this kind will not be suitable for catfish, because they will not withstand a jerk with a power of fifty kilograms. It is not difficult to equip a donk. You just need to install a suitable reel on the rod, wind the braid around it and attach a sinker to the end of the cord, and a leash with a hook a little higher.
You can also use a sliding sinker. To do this, you need to put a weight on the end of the cord, tie a swivel and attach a leash with a suitable hook to it.
This article will tell you about floats for fishing in currents.
Here you will find useful information: how to choose and how to knit hooks for fishing.
How to catch catfish with liver
One of the best baits for catfish is chicken liver. Beef is also used, but it is still inferior in catchability to chicken. The middle pieces are placed on the hook. The result is a volumetric nozzle of this type:
Another interesting option for planting liver is to grind it in a blender and mix it with flour. The result will be a red dough. Take a ball the size of a fist and place it on a tee of the appropriate size. We catch catfish with a bottom fishing rod and a boat or a hook with a nylon rope.
Two effective ways to catch catfish
Fishing with a feeder at night. The advantage of night fishing, especially in summer, is the absence of heat. Prepare everything you need before dark. In the summer, complementary food for catfish consists of 70% animal food, in the fall only from it.
It won’t bite right away – it will take the catfish about half an hour to smell the bait. The bite can be different: from a slightly swaying tip to a strongly inclined rod tip. As soon as you feel a bite, strike sharply. Be prepared for the fact that even a small catfish will resist, so fishing occurs gradually. Tire the fish out before crossing and hauling it ashore. A detailed guide to feeder fishing for beginners.
Fishing with quok from a boat. Fishing with kwok is catching catfish from a boat with a donkey-type tackle, but not from the bottom, but at a depth of about five meters. In order to lure the catfish, they slap a quok on the water, which makes specific sounds. It is better to go out with a partner for this type of fishing.
Start fishing from the beginning of the catfish hole. Lower the sinker 4-6 meters above the hole. Start playing kwok. The sounds will attract the fish, it will swallow the bait and begin to pull to the bottom, and then stop. Cast out several meters of fishing line until the catfish swallows the bait deeper and when it pulls to the depth again, make a sweeping hook. Details about how to catch catfish using a kwok are described in our article.
Catching catfish on the liver and attaching bait to the hook
A good bait is half the success of fishing. Every fisherman knows this truth, but somyatniks are especially scrupulous about the selection of baits. The capricious mustachioed giant is selective in its feeding and it is rare that even on the same body of water it is possible to choose a universal bait that allows you to effectively catch fish throughout the entire catfish hunting season. Numerous practical experiments on the selection of effective baits have nevertheless identified the most beloved and preferred bait options more often than other baits. Catching catfish with the liver has become just such an example.
Despite all the difficulties that arise with securing the catfish delicacy on the hook, the subtlety and accuracy of supplying it to the fishing zone and storing the product, the use of bait does not lose its relevance and is intensively used by catfish hunters when they plan and carry out a catfish hunt. To ensure that fishing for a giant using this product gives the angler only positive emotions and brings only a trophy that is significant in the results, we advise you to familiarize yourself with the contents of this article, which will highlight the main problems and ways to solve them, allowing you to catch catfish using chicken liver.
Advantages of the nozzle
Undoubtedly, the main advantages of the nozzle include its dual action.
After all, the product, due to its composition and structure, simultaneously plays the role of bait and the role of a direct attachment. Soft, filled with juice, which is based on the blood of the animal, with a strong aroma, the liver lures a mustachioed predator to the fishing point from great distances. This effect of spreading an odorous plume is used especially well in bodies of water with a current. In such places, this catfish bait lures the giant out of even its most distant hiding places, allowing you to place fishing gear in the shallows, in convenient places, where installation control is under constant supervision and it is easier to pull the caught fish out of the water. Availability of the product also plays an important role. After all, fresh liver kits can be purchased indefinitely in the meat department of any grocery store, and their cost is not particularly expensive, especially in comparison with the purchase of baitfish or bindweed.
Important! One of the advantages of livers is the ability to mix the product with other types of vegetable baits, in particular flour and semolina, which gives working combinations that are as effective as live bait.
How to preserve your liver while fishing
Difficulties in fishing are caused by storing the product, especially if the fishing session lasts several days during the hot period of the year. By freezing the giblets before leaving, the fisherman can initially benefit from hooking a product with a dense consistency. But over time, the liver loses these qualities and becomes a crumbly, friable substance that easily falls apart.
Taking into account modern possibilities, the presence of a car when fishing and the purchase of a stationary mini-fridge, it does not seem impossible to preserve a frozen product for a couple of days. But if fishing takes place in a remote place without the benefits of civilization, the fisherman will have to be smart. Using a portable refrigerator, which can be assembled from a metal box covered with foam panels, helps to guarantee the preservation of the liver for a couple of days.
Important! Before going fishing, plastic bottles with frozen water are placed in such a refrigerator, leaving free space for storing food. A tightly closed insulated box will keep it cold and keep the bait in perfect condition.
Such a device does not require electrical energy or special care; the main thing here is to monitor the tightness of the closed lid, not allowing external heat to penetrate inside the box.
Selection of gear for catfish fishing
Fishing gear is selected not based on the type of bait, but based on the size of the possible catch. And as you know, catfish over 20–30 kilograms are not that uncommon, especially on large rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Using liver giblets, the bottom fishing method is used.
Important! In particular, the most comfortable option is to use a rubber donkey, which allows you to carefully deliver this delicate bait to the fishing point without hitting the water.
They fish with basic braided lines of 0.5-0.7 mm, with the installation of fluorocarbon half-meter leaders from 1 mm in diameter using a forged steel hook. Since the bait is amorphous, the leash is not equipped with a swivel, thereby thinning the tackle. To hold the installation in a certain water horizon, the leashes are equipped with foam float bosses of various weights. When completing the bottom tackle formed on the fishing rod, powerful 3-meter feeder sticks are used, with weights from 150–200 grams. A slow action blank is suitable for wearing down powerful fish and reliably landing them.
Multiplier reels with high traction parameters make it easier to fight a trophy that has landed on a hook. A braided cord of 0.4-0.5 mm, a sliding weight and a hook number 2–4 with a shortened shank complete the equipment set. When using a leash, which is sometimes ignored by experienced fishermen who have the skill of slowly reeling in while controlling the course of the cord, you need to use a swivel, which prevents the bait and load from twisting at the time of winding the cord.
How to attach a liver for catching catfish
The method of fixing the chicken liver on the hook depends on the type of hook used. It is best to place frozen livers on tees, stringing a selected piece of product onto each tip in layers. In this form, the nozzle will remain in the water for at least two hours, after which it needs to be replaced.
Using single and double hooks, fishermen resort to tricks that make the bait more reliable in terms of its density. To do this, the frozen product is tightly stuffed into a nylon stocking, after which it becomes much easier to place the liver on the tip of the sting. In addition to direct fitting, they use tying to a hook and fastening with rubber bands tied into a ring and, with their compression force, tightly pressing the nylon sausage to the fore-end. The nylon stocking does not reduce the effectiveness of the bait, since the trail of flavoring aromas continues to spread freely throughout the reservoir through the mesh of the material.
Another fastening method is based on mixing offal with flour. In this case, the crumpled livers are mixed with regular flour, obtaining plastic pellets, which are mounted on hooks.
How to catch catfish with liver
Catching catfish using chicken, beef or pork liver is carried out according to the same principle. The fisherman selects a promising place for fishing and decides on the gear with which he will hunt. Depending on the type of gear and the strength of the current, the bait is prepared by making a mixture with flour or stuffing giblets into a nylon net. When installing rubber donks, problems with feeding baits into the fishing zone do not arise due to the design of the gear.
Important! Using casting hooks requires paying special attention to attaching the bait, because otherwise, already on casting, it can be lost either during a strong swing or when hitting the water.
After a successful cast, the bet is equipped with a signaling device and a bite is expected.
Important! If there are none, the attachment is checked at least once every two hours, adding or replacing completely with a new one.
The bites for giblets are sharp, as the catfish immediately sucks up the delicacy and immediately retreats to the shelter zone. They respond to the bite alarm with a sharp hook and, with noticeable tugs, begin to fish, trying to lift the giant as close to the surface of the water as possible, which is achieved by working the rod by increasing its lifting angle, winding the loose cord with the reel. Having pulled the fish to the shallows, the trophy is hooked under the gills with a long hook and dragged to the shore, where especially large specimens are stunned with a rubber hammer. Small items up to 10 kg are placed on a kukan without humanization.
Liver fixation
After all, since the liver, especially defrosted, is quite soft, this problem is familiar to many fishermen. Some anglers cope with the task in a very specific way - they simply take with them portable refrigerators filled with ice, as a result of which the liver does not have time to completely defrost.
But the following methods of fixing bait have also proven themselves to be very good:
- using tee No. 8 or 10. If the liver is carefully placed on each hook, it will not fall apart for a long time. The undoubted advantage of the method is that you can plant both frozen and thawed liver;
- using a nylon sock. The “treat” is wrapped in a sock, after which the product is fixed to the hook. Since nylon is a very thin but durable material, it will not prevent the spread of odor, but will not allow the liver to fall apart.
Bait made from chicken liver mixed with wheat flour also worked very well. The ingredients will need to be mixed in equal proportions, formed into balls and also placed on the tees.
orybalke.com
Catching catfish with chicken liver
Anglers with many years of experience know that fishing for catfish using the liver is an extremely catchy way to catch fish. Despite the fact that this river giant is impressive in size and sometimes intimidates fishermen, it is not at all averse to eating food waste, including chicken liver. Such a bait has one significant drawback - due to its specific consistency, it is quite difficult to place the liver on the hook, but even if this can be done, it will last only a few minutes, and then it will begin to fall apart. In order not to be left without a catch and not to waste time, you need to know how to catch catfish using chicken liver.
Fishing tips
Regardless of what bait you use to catch channel catfish, you need to know what time to fish and what body of water to choose. As practice shows, river giants are not found in every reservoir, so catching them can be quite difficult.
To ensure that catching catfish on the liver is not unsuccessful, you must consider the following tips:
- If you plan to fish for catfish, the optimal time for fishing is after midnight. Catfish become active and go in search of food only at night; during the day they prefer to lie down at the bottom;
- small and large individuals like to spend time close to the shore, in areas with well-warmed water. If there is such a place near the reservoir, you should definitely try to throw bait there;
- Since catfish do not have a picky taste, they can be caught using a variety of baits. But experienced fishermen claim that what attracts these fish most of all is the smell of feathers, singed wool and smoked meat;
- To create the most suitable conditions for fishing, you can use specialized aromatic baits, which are sold in almost every store today.
If you were unable to prepare for fishing in advance and stock up on everything you needed, you can simply quickly fry a piece of chicken meat over the fire (and it does not have to be fresh).
Collection of equipment
Since catfish are impressive in size and weight, it is easy to guess that the fish is very strong, so only very strong fishing rods should be used for fishing.
They must meet the following requirements:
- The fishing rod itself should not only be strong, but also have decent weight and bend well. The optimal fishing rod size is up to 2 m.
- As for the selection of a reel, in this case it is recommended to give preference to the animated version, since an ordinary inertia-free reel may not be able to cope with fishing for such large fish.
- Instead of fishing line, it is better to use high-quality braid, the thickness of which should be at least 0.5 mm. In this case, you need to expect that the braid will have to withstand a weight of up to 60 kg, the breaking force will also be decent.
- Hooks must be strong.
Collecting such equipment will cost the fisherman a decent amount, but otherwise it is almost impossible to catch catfish.
Chicken liver as fishing bait
Such bait for chub will also be a desired delicacy, the main thing is that the chicken liver is raw.
Advice:
consuming chicken liver in another form (boiled or scalded with boiling water) will reduce the effectiveness of biting, since the treated bait loses the smell of blood and the reddish color that attracts fish so much.
2.1 Methods for attaching chicken livers to a hook
- You can find detailed instructions on how to most effectively attach chicken livers to a hook and a double on one of our pages.
- The fresh liver is placed in a nylon stocking, pierced at the top and rotated around a hook and pierced. You can pre-tie the bait with thread.
- You can mix the bait with flour and pass the mixture through a blender (meat grinder), roll into balls and place on a hook. The flour will glue the mass together and prevent it from falling apart.
How to choose the right fishing hook, what key points you should not miss when purchasing, read this detailed
2.2 Fishing technique when using chicken liver
When using chicken liver, the bait is cast downstream (35 degrees to the water flow). The hook must be sharp, as the fish can easily rip it off the hook, since the liver is not firmly held on the hook.
Fishing tactics
For successful fishing, you need to be aware of the behavioral characteristics of this fish. First of all, the fisherman needs to know that in the warm season, when fishing for catfish will be the most promising, the river giant shows maximum activity in the dark. It feeds most actively around midnight, so catching catfish with donks or zakidushki is night fishing.
At night, catfish often go out into shallow water, which means it makes sense to throw gear not only into the pits themselves, but also into shallower areas nearby - in those places where the river giant will look for food.
Chicken, beef or any other liver is a fairly effective and at the same time affordable option for baiting catfish. The attractive smell is quite capable of collecting active fish even from distant areas of the reservoir.
