Thread: don't think so

Nice pictures Cache22! Those will take a person's mind off of this winter weather and thinking of spring!!! Speaking of warmer weather. I have been eye balling the weather forecast for next week. Trying to figure out which afternoon I can slip off from work.

Most likely the guy eye fishing is enjoying a great meal tonight and a deep fried bird wouldn't be to bad either....

How long does it take you to bait all your lines?
Do you use the same bait on all hooks?

Originally Posted by Turtlebait

How long does it take you to bait all your lines?
Do you use the same bait on all hooks?

Getting bait this time of year can take 2 minutes or it can take 1 hour. If I can find the shad bunched up, 1 throw is all it takes. It takes about 3 hours to bait up around 600 hooks or so. I use cut shad mostly. A panfish or 2 if they get caught up in the thrownet with the shad.

Thanks for the reply and think your made of brass...
If I can be noisey again and ask do you do this every day of the year with weather permitting?
Do you have to catch bait every time you go?
Nets? now many nets.
My hats off to the guys that brave the plain and cold to serve others.

turtlebait,

I don't do it for a living, but I do run my lines every day, even in weather like this as long as I can get down and back up the ramp. I'll run my nets (5 or 6) every other day when there's enough current to keep them up. I get new bait every day. Never done any good on day old or frozen shad.

I've got a fish market or 2 that'll buy pretty much all I catch, but usually, during the week, I'll sell 'em to a couple of colored guys that sell out of the back of their trucks. But, on Friday nights when I bait up, I'll keep all the fish I have on my lines and when I go back Saturday morning and run them, I'll keep those too. Then I'll set up on the side of the road @ my office, like the colored guys do, and clean those myself and I'll double the money I'd usually make from selling to the colored fellers just by selling to people that just drive by. I've sold 500+ lbs on a pretty weather Saturday just by sitting on the side of the road selling to drive by folks when it's the right time of the month and Govt checks have just come out.

I've got a 7a-4p real job. My dad commercial fished for a living, as did his dad, and put 3 of us thru college doing it. Not too sure I'd do it for a living, unless I had to. Way too hard of work for a fat red headed boy like me. There are guys that'll catch 5-6000 lbs a week, but they run 3000+ hooks or 100+ nets. On a normal week, I'll catch 100 lbs or so a day, but this time of the year and during the spring I'll do a little better. Sometimes a lot better. It's enough to pay for my gas, cigarettes and Turkey 101. During the hot summer, I sometimes won't catch a hundred lbs the whole week.

Its in the blood huh...

One more Q'tion and I'll put my noise back on my face,,,what part of the state are you from?

Having a hobby of that sort and doing it everyday is something that is slowly becoming a lost art.I know a few guys that did that back several years ago,I helped them a few times and that was some of the hardest work I've done.Never helped them though the winter but I know one thing,baiting hooks with 1000's and 1000's of blood suckers looking for a meal isn't for the faint hearted.

looks more like duck and goose hunting weather.

turtleb,

I live just outside Jacksonville.

It's definately just a hobby. I don't really hunt much, or bass fish or crappie dob, so catfishing is pretty much my "being outside" vice.

I started riding in the boat and carrying the bait bucket with my dad when I was 5 or 6 and started pulling the seine when I was 9 or 10. Him & a guy from church that was his fishing partner would seine bait from an hour or 2 before dark till they got enough to bait 1400-1500 hooks. Sometimes more. Take fish off and bait up and get in @ midnight or so. Get up @ daylight and clean fish and sell and deliver fish till it was all gone. Start all over getting bait and do the same every night and day...other than Wednesday night and Sunday. He never ran lines on Wednesday night or put the boat in the water on a Sunday. Never. Regardless of how good the fish were biting. He did that from '61 or '62 till 1987. He just got tired of it one day and sold his boat the next day and has rode with me a couple times since, but has never baited a hook or bought a fishing license since then.

I started in 1990 with my own boat and have missed a few nights because of broken motors and frozen ramps and kids being born. I've tied lines on every stump and piling from Fourche La Fave to Wrightsville. Seen 100 pound catfish. 150 pound gar. Caught dead deer, ducks and beavers. Never a dead person, though. Got 1 kid in college right now that is being paid for from my "hobby". Will have another start in a couple years that'll work out pretty much the same. Eat fresh catfish 3 or 4 days a week. Will probably do the same as my old man, and just quit one day.