Typically neglected by sport fisherpeople, catfish can present great angling in addition to wonderful eating.
by Leon Pantenburg
On my 1980 Supply-to-Sea canoe voyage of the Mississippi River, I used to be an opportunistic fisherman. No matter species I caught first ended up as lunch or dinner. My go-to fishing rig was a medium-action, fast-tip spinning rod, with a Mitchell 300 spinning reel spooled with six-pound Trelene™. My go-to lure was a 1/8-ounce leadhead jig with a yellow Mister Tornado™ tail.
Dinner, supplied by the Mississippi River. Layne Logue, of Quapaw Canoe Firm – Vicksburg Outpost hoists a stringer of catfish.
Catfish had been incessantly my fish of selection. I might bait my hook, toss it into an eddy, stick the rod deal with between the cracks within the concrete rip-rap and go arrange camp. Usually, dinner was quickly accessible.
My favourite catfish bait was recent rooster livers. I might purchase some on the grocery retailer, and if the fish weren’t biting, the liver might be fried as an alternative. The catfish (or rooster livers) had been dredged in flour, and fried in a scorching skillet over my backpacking range. Both tasted great, starvation being the very best sauce!
My pal, the late Frank Smith of Utica, Mississippi, was essentially the most profitable catfish harvester I ever ran throughout. He ran trotlines on the Massive Black River in central Mississippi and sometimes introduced residence a boatload of fish. Frank’s go-to bait was goldfish.
Frank’s fish fries had been legendary, and included cole slaw and hush puppies. Frank would feed all his buddies and neighbors, and ship dinners to native shut-ins.
Essentially the most generally eaten catfish species in america are the channel catfish and the blue catfish, based on Wikipedia, each of that are widespread within the wild. Farm-raised catfish turned such a staple of the U.S. weight loss program that President Ronald Reagan established National Catfish Day on June 25, 1987, to acknowledge “the worth of farm-raised catfish.”
Survival fishing isn’t sport fishing, and through an emergency, ethics might take a again seat to feeding individuals. Test the native fish and recreation legal guidelines – if a technique is prohibited, that’s most likely as a result of it’s so efficient.
Trotlines might not be authorized in your space. However the place they’re, a trotline will be the best approach to catch sufficient catfish for dinner. Throughout a catastrophe or survival state of affairs, a trotline could be set, and you are able to do one thing else whilst you’re fishing. The traces could be tended by children or seniors.
Here’s a conventional southern fried catfish recipe.
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Need to attempt catching huge river catfish? Contact Quapaw Canoe Company Vicksburg Outpost, Quapaw Canoe Company or Big River Wild Adventures.